Copyright: ® Roger Hadgraft, 1993


FileSave

© Roger Hadgraft, 1993

What it does

Installation

Warnings!

Options

License fee

Disclaimer

Building Help files

Glossary


What it does

FileSave asks each of your active applications to save its work every 10 minutes. This is particularly useful if you forget to save things as you work. (It's saved me on a number of occasions). It is also handy if you leave your machine for a while, because everything will have been saved by the time you get back to it.

You can also ask it to do its work at any time (the Save work now option), or you can temporarily suspend its work by clicking on the AutoSave option, so that it is no longer checked (ticked). When you want it to start working again, simply click on AutoSave again. The AutoSave option also lets you know how long it is until the next save. These options are in the System Menu. FileSave exists as an icon at all times.


Installation

The easiest way to use FileSave is to put it in the StartUp group in the Program Manager or add it to the load= or run= line in your win.ini file, eg.

load=filesave.exe  control.exe  clipbrd.exe

FileSave works by finding all active windows, (both iconised and non-iconised), then looking for a menu bar, and searching through the menu for a 'File' sub-menu, and then scanning that sub-menu for a 'Save' option (but not 'Save as', or 'Save As'). It does this every 10 minutes, but every minute it updates the time listed in the system menu, to tell when the next save will occur.

You can also change the save period to anything that suits you, and you can have it also activate "Save All" in any menu (eg. in QuickC or Microsoft Word), and you can turn on its ability to display the time before the next save in the window title. See Options. In addition, you can have FileSave confirm each save. All of these things can be turned on through the Options dialog box. (Note that if you turn on the updating of the title bar, it will stop your screen saver coming on).


Warnings!

Be careful, because, while the applications are saving their work, you might (occasionally) lose some keystrokes. For example, Write seems to lose keystrokes while it's saving. Also, if the current document doesn't yet have a name, a dialog box will popup, and some of your keystrokes will be directed into it. These are (generally) minor irritations.

If you're like me, and occasionally edit one document to produce a new copy (with a different name), make sure that you save the document under the new name before you make any changes to it! Otherwise, FileSave might sneak up on you, and save a half modified dosument on top of the old one (that you wanted to keep). This has caught me out a few times.

Apart from these warnings, I have had no problems with it since the last revision, when I fixed the manner in which it hands back the focus to the previously active application.


Options

 The Options dialog box looks like this:

This allows you to:

(i)	access this Help file,

(ii)	request FileSave to confirm each save,

(iii)	choose to activate "Save All", and

(iv)	display the time to the next save in the window title.

The defaults are: confirm off, Save All off, display time on, and a save time of 10 minutes.


License fee

This program is copyright © Roger Hadgraft. You may distribute it to your friends, and through computer clubs, and via bulletin boards. However, it may not be distributed for profit, or sold or distributed with any other product, except by arrangement.

A registration fee of A$10 is payable to the address below, for each copy in use, except for corporate users who may pay A$10*Sqrt(N) where N is the number of copies in use. Updates may be obtained by including an extra A$10 for a disk, or A$5 for an e-mailed copy.

All payments should be in Australian dollars! If not, add A$5 to cover bank charges.


Disclaimer

This program is provided to you as is. I have been using it for more than a year under Windows 3.1, and I used earlier versions under Windows 3.0 and 2.1 for many months. As far as I know, it causes no other problems than a bit of a delay every 10 minutes while your work is saved. However, see Warnings!. I use it every day on two 486 machines (in enhanced mode).

However, since I can't possibly test it with every Windows application available, and on every type of machine, you will have to test it yourself for your own circumstances. As far as I know, it works correctly with MS Word, Excel, Paintbrush, Guide, Pegasus Mail, Calendar, PIF Editor, etc.

A couple of applications (like Calendar and Cardfile ) take a long time to save. You might prefer not to have them always loaded. I'm considering adding an Exempt option in the next revision to exempt some applications from the Autosave.

If you note any problems with this program please notify the author:

Roger Hadgraft

Dept of Civil Engineering,

Monash University, Clayton, Victoria 3170 Australia.

Internet:	roger.hadgraft@eng.monash.edu.au

Fax:	+61 3 565 4944


Building Help files

The following program is available by sending US$30 (A$30 in Australia and New Zealand) to the author as above:

Doctor Help	Doctor Help is a Word for Windows macro that translates ordinary Word files (like this one) into a form ready for the Help compiler. It was used to create this Help file, and can be obtained from various FTP sites as DRHELPE4.ZIP (or DRHELPE5.ZIP). The evaluation version is fully functional except that it will only handle 30 topics. (It would be more than adequate to handle this file). Doctor Help is particularly useful if you are trying to maintain parallel printed and on-line documentation.


Glossary

StartUp group


StartUp group

The StartUp group in the Program Manager allows you to specify applications that will be started automatically at startup time. It is easier to use than the old run= and load= lines from WIN.INI.