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Possible bug related with miniscrap?

Posted: 2013 Sep 04, 07:56
by jcmn
I'm using the last beta of xplorer ultimate and yesterday I was filtering the mini scrap with the new filter feature. I was seeing only one item of the total items that I have in the CIDA file as expected but meanwhile I closed xplorer. Later when I opened xplorer again the miniscrap opened only with the item seen before the closing. In fact the CIDA file only has this item. It seems that xplorer when closing saved the CIDA file with only this item. I would like to confirm this.

Re: Possible bug related with miniscrap?

Posted: 2013 Sep 04, 07:59
by nikos
this is how miniscrap and all other scraps are designed to work, they only save the visible items. There is a warning about this "feature" if you try to save a normal scrap window's contents

awaiting reprimand by drac ;)

Re: Possible bug related with miniscrap?

Posted: 2013 Sep 04, 08:26
by jcmn
I really don´t like that "feature", because I lost my scrap items. is it possible to disable this or at least to have a setting?

Re: Possible bug related with miniscrap?

Posted: 2013 Sep 04, 08:34
by nikos
use tools > advanced options menu then tick off "autosave" property of miniscrap pane (in layout page), then any changes you make must be confirmed before they are saved

Re: Possible bug related with miniscrap?

Posted: 2013 Sep 04, 10:49
by Kilmatead
I can understand the logic of saving only filtered contents when a manual save is invoked (as the user is aware of what he's doing) - but I would (once again) question the rationale behind the same behaviour applying to auto-saving. That's like being kicked out of catechism two years after you stole that extra sip of wine as an alter boy - it's an overly harsh punishment for a momentary lapse of attention.

The manual-save filter is actually useful - the auto-save filter is unnecessarily cruel. This looks like lazy design to me - however, your only saving grace on this one is that the contents are queried on closure if desired. (That being said, the modal querying this saving could be a little clearer about what the heck it's actually asking you - if the CIDA is unnamed, it just pops up asking about "untitled". "Untitled what?" my brain immediately asks, thinking maybe that extra cup of coffee was a bad idea, before a few seconds later tolerating a moment's cursing with a wee forgiveness of your intent.)

Those few seconds of cursing add up over a lifetime, you know, and there seems to be no "real" practical purpose to imposing this filtering palaver on auto-save. :shrug:

Unless, oh grand pooh-bah, you have an explanation that would make sense even to poor Drac?

Re: Possible bug related with miniscrap?

Posted: 2013 Sep 04, 11:13
by jcmn
Kilmatead

That's exactly what I was thinking about this.

Re: Possible bug related with miniscrap?

Posted: 2013 Sep 04, 12:24
by Kilmatead
You got kicked out of catechism for stealing wine too? Cool! :cool:

In case Nikos is in one of his "I will only read short posts today" moods, the gist is simple: under all circumstances the visual filters are exactly that: Visual.

And then the one time (the ONE TIME!) content actually matters, x2 throws an unexpected wrench in the works.

Not kosher, dude. (Unless Nikos can prove he stole some wine too, in which case I'll forgive him.)

Re: Possible bug related with miniscrap?

Posted: 2013 Sep 04, 21:37
by drac
Nikos,

See, as I said, Kilmatead is way harsher than I am.

While you DID respond with one of your stock answers (that is how it was designed) you did say how to at least get a warning. I think what others are saying (I do not use scrap windows, so I do not care) is that maybe it should be designed differently. We are NOT (or at least I am not) attacking you for your design choices. You may have had good reasons for doing what you did. When people point out these issues they are asking if it is possible to CHANGE the way it was designed. I understand that an attack, however nicely phrased, on your software can be taken as an attack on you. However I do not think that is what people mean to do. If you could take comments as a way for us, your loyal and concerned users, to help you make X2 even better, you might respond differently.

Re: Possible bug related with miniscrap?

Posted: 2013 Sep 05, 05:44
by nikos
here we had a freak combination. jcmn both modified the miniscrap (added or removed stuff), and turned on the filter. The files wouldn't be gone if just a filter was in effect. It was the combination. It is not your typical everyday scenario

Re: Possible bug related with miniscrap?

Posted: 2013 Sep 05, 07:13
by Kilmatead
nikos wrote:It is not your typical everyday scenario
It's not? :shock: You may win a prize for this one - that makes even less sense than your flimsy argument above!

I know you seem to limit the conceptional use of the mini-scrap to an extra Bookmarks toolbar or some nonsense like that, but (I don't know about anyone else) I use, and expect to use, it as - um - a local scrap container? Instead of the bother of dealing with a separate window, the mini is happily docked and available whenever I want it, as I want it, and why I want it. I would never expect the contents themselves to be anything other than what I put there - be it stolen wine or sets of project files I'm working on (which often need to be filtered).

It just so happens that (due to my own approach) I don't actually use Auto-Save so I never ran across this, and fully expect to lose everything each session - but I (unlike "some" people :wink:) do not expect other users to use things the way I do (except toilet-roll - I reckon most everyone uses that the same way, or at least I hope they do. :shrug:)

If I wanted an extra permanent/static Bookmarks toolbar, I'd just make one! But the mini-scrap is different: Why should a user not be allowed to modify the contents and filter them at the same time and yet not expect the underlying contents to remain sacrosanct? You want us to constantly create and destroy separate folders of hard-links for each and every given project set?

The contents should always be sacrosanct, especially when auto-saving (as that's when a user is more likely to assume it would work as logic suggests).

Like I said above, saving only the filtered/visible contents is a great and useful thing when on manual - but in no way shape or form should it ever be applied to auto-saving. This is Aristotelian Logic 101, if ever anything was!