I use version-ed backups in Emacs. Theoretically, I go to the backup directory occasionally and clean out old backups with dired. In reality, backups are never cleaned out. A GB of storage costs fractions of a penny, and my text files are tiny.
I do. And you should. Whenever possible.
But not all your edits and saves will be ready to be checked into VCS, but it can be inconvenient if you lose them. That’s where version-ed backups come in.
If I only worked on one machine, then my backups are a crude super-set of the VCS content.
I don’t try to solve this. :(
This is what “backup-walker” does.
What about backups-mode?
I didn’t find Chad Braun-Duin’s backups-mode until after I made backup-walker. Although they seem to serve different purposes.
“backup-walker” does not modify the Emacs backup system. It’s just a way to
quickly traverse the backups you already have. And the emphasis is on
traversing backups. There is never a listing of all the backups. (although if
you’re interested, you can jump to the backup directory with dired-jump
while traversing)
- [X] open backup in traversal mode if the diff seems interesting
- [X] Once a backup is opened, traversing amongst backups is easy using the same keys.
- [X] the point kept the same as much as possible while traversing backups as much as possible by parsing diff output on the fly.
- [X] find the version of backup where a line disappeared.
- Of course this works best if you have comprehensive backup history.
- [X] optionally kill all open backups when quiting
Emacs 23+