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Make time stamped backups as one overwrites image with CTL-S?

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Make time stamped backups as one overwrites image with CTL-S? Dave Bodenstab 24 Aug 19:13
  Make time stamped backups as one overwrites image with CTL-S? Partha Bagchi 24 Aug 22:04
Dave Bodenstab
2017-08-24 19:13:48 UTC (over 7 years ago)

Make time stamped backups as one overwrites image with CTL-S?

I've begun learning & using Gimp. I figured I may as well start with the newest version of Gimp that I could find so I am using Partha's build: win7x64, v2.9.5, commit 14795c1.

I should have been more careful but I ignored the "Unstable Development Version" warning which I get when I start Gimp. I lost quite a bit of work after getting some error messages about not being able to read swap or something. A save (CTL-S) seemed to work, so I continued. It turns out the image is corrupted.

Question: many editors have an option to make a backup of the item being edited before writing over the original. I know I could do a "save as" but that is rather tedious as I would have to type a name each time. Is there any option or extension that would save a time stamped backup before overwriting the original when I use CTL-S to save my progress?

I would think this would be a very useful option. I was very surprised to find that I could accidentally move the background layer. It seems to me that it is far too easy to accidentally do something (because I forgot to click the right tool), not notice and then save over my original.

As an aside, is there something I could put on the windows shortcut that would save a log of error messages? The popup said something about writing to stderr, but that does not exist on windows when I start via the shortcut link.

Partha Bagchi
2017-08-24 22:04:55 UTC (about 7 years ago)

Make time stamped backups as one overwrites image with CTL-S?

On Thu, Aug 24, 2017 at 3:13 PM, Dave Bodenstab wrote:

I've begun learning & using Gimp. I figured I may as well start with the newest version of Gimp that I could find so I am using Partha's build: win7x64, v2.9.5, commit 14795c1.

I should have been more careful but I ignored the "Unstable Development Version" warning which I get when I start Gimp. I lost quite a bit of work after getting some error messages about not being able to read swap or something. A save (CTL-S) seemed to work, so I continued. It turns out the image is corrupted.

Yes, you have to save and save often. Another option is to always make a backup of the image you're about to edit.

Question: many editors have an option to make a backup of the item being edited before writing over the original. I know I could do a "save as" but that is rather tedious as I would have to type a name each time. Is there any option or extension that would save a time stamped backup before overwriting the original when I use CTL-S to save my progress?

GIMP's default saving option is an XCF file. So, I am assuming you are talking about a backup of the XCF file itself? I am not aware of this option.

I would think this would be a very useful option. I was very surprised to find that I could accidentally move the background layer. It seems to me that it is far too easy to accidentally do something (because I forgot to click the right tool), not notice and then save over my original.

You should be able to click on the lock button so that you don't accidentally move a layer.

As an aside, is there something I could put on the windows shortcut that would save a log of error messages? The popup said something about writing to stderr, but that does not exist on windows when I start via the shortcut link.

Assign the error window to one of the tabs. that way, you don't see message/error windows popping up. This way, you can save everything in that tab to an error log if you will.

Also, my builds create and save a log of the current session in your temp folder. The file is called runGIMP-2.9.5-std-(long series of numbers).log. Your temp folder is usually C:\Users\YourUserName\AppData\Local\Temp. Note that this log is deleted at the start of the next GIMP session.

Hope this helps.

Please let me know if you have any questions.

Thanks, Partha