Add option to autosave files

[bjorn]

It would be nice to have the option to auto-save maps and tilesets with some interval after each change. This can prevent data loss, but can also be simply convenient to make changes immediately available without having to trigger a save manually.

The auto-saving should apply to all currently not auto-saved assets: Maps, Tilesets and Worlds.

Suggestion: Add a combo-box with text "Autosave interval", with the following options:

• Disabled
• 1 second
• 5 seconds
• 1 minute

Alternatively, a text edit could be added where the user can fill in the exact amount of seconds to wait after a change. Something like:

[ ] Autosave after making changes: [ 1 seconds ]

Feature requested at https://itch.io/post/4512127.

[eishiya]

Those options seem very low, I usually see options like 1 minute, 15 minutes, 30 minutes, 1 hour. Even if it's after making changes, not every single change needs an autosave, and overly frequent saves are hard on drives.

Autosaving that just does a regular save can be a pretty dangerous thing, I think some sort of secondary autosave that saves to a separate file should at least be an option. For example, someone might want autosaves to avoid data loss, but might not want them to overwrite the original files because they have some heavy scripts (e.g. rebuilding their whole game, or generating minimaps) set to execute when those files change.

[bjorn]

Those options seem very low, I usually see options like 1 minute, 15 minutes, 30 minutes, 1 hour. Even if it's after making changes, not every single change needs an autosave, and overly frequent saves are hard on drives.

Alright, 1 minute seemed rather long to me already and should not be too frequent for storage media, but I don't see any harm in adding a few longer options, if we don't just go for a flexible number of seconds anyway.

Autosaving that just does a regular save can be a pretty dangerous thing, I think some sort of secondary autosave that saves to a separate file should at least be an option.

Hmm, I agree a "backup save" option would also be nice, but that's a rather different and also more complicated feature. It raises questions like where to save the backup and needs a UI that allows the user to decide whether they want to restore it, and there probably needs to be some auto-deletion of these backups on clean shutdown.

In this case, the point of the feature is mostly to get rid of the need to manually trigger the Save action. I imagine also that with this feature enabled, closing an asset after making changes to it should automatically save it, since it would be a bit strange if it depended on how long you idled after your last change.

I guess it is dangerous in the sense that if you make any unintended change, the only way to undo it is by using the undo action (as opposed to closing without saving). And if Tiled is closed or crashes, that undo action is no longer available. For this reason I would recommend people to use version control when they enable this feature.

[eishiya]

That all makes sense.
Sounds like I'm definitely not the target audience for automatic saving xP

I should've clarified: I didn't mean backup as in versioning, I meant backup as in just recovery data for crashes, the recovery data need not be directly accessible to users.

If you are interested in adding (recovery) autosaves at some point, I think the way Aseprite does them is a good model to follow:


Recovery data for successfully closed sessions is automatically deleted, so only recovery data for crashed sessions remains. That data seems to be kept indefinitely, but you can delete it from within the program if you no longer need it. The recovery data is stored in the application data directory, the same place where Tiled stores its default session and default stamps.