AbiWord Auto save

[Colin23erk]

Thanks for everyone's help
At last. I feel  that I have found a Word processor that does what I want it to
Firstly Open Office Writer is available as a stand alone Program without needing to have a whole office suit that I do not need 
.
In Open Writer 4  it is easy to create a Template > Save it > make it the Default and also set my own save file type.I found it "User friendly" to set up my own options  with simple menu driven  choices

Also I liked the provision of a clear well written and presented PDF User Guide which  combined with the excellent  LL Document Viewer I was able to search for the pages i needed that had clear instructions of "How to Do" things

Overall I have found it more Mature and polished for a novice user to use than most of the other Office Suites which are often  let down by poor documentation

Colin


 

[Wirezfree]

Hi,

I do not know AbiWord, see if you have preferences/settings/ for the default file paths.
In Libre Office you can set path defaults, Tools > Options > Paths
I have set a path to the normal document folder, where things are normally stored,
and a path to backups, in my case a separate disk/partition location.




The first thing I always do when I create a "new" document is immediately do a "Save As",
then I navigate to where I want to save it, like /documents/writer or /documents/calc

[Colin23erk]

Paul---Thanks for your investigations -- I will have another look at it when I find some spare time .  I do not need to use a Word app at the moment as I only a few letters .

The usual irony is that when you need something to work like autosave it does not work.

I still feel that the feature and where the files are stored should be more accessible from within Abiword as a Menu item .

Colin

[paul1149]

I just tested abi 3.0.0. The .bak file remained until abi was closed. It wasn't deleted when the open document was saved. Presumably the .bak file will remain if Abi is closed abnormally.

I then reopened Abi and began typing in an unsaved document. I found a document "untitled1.bak" at home/paul/documents, the same title that was in Abi's Title Bar, which had a "today" timestamp (I'd like to find a way to get more out of Properties. That's one thing I miss from Windows). I then used Task Manager to Kill Abiword, which is an abnormal closure from Abi's perspective. Then I right-clicked untitled1.bak and selected Open With... Abi, and it was the document that had been lost.

[Colin23erk]

Thanks

Just set up a "Untitled " and a "test" and set the time interval to 1 min  and both have a .BAK  file which are being updated and the files read by ABI word by default .
I think I have discovered what is happening -- the BAK file is deleted when the document is "Saved" so I assume that if the computer crashes and the document is lost so is the BAK file the auto save is no use if something bad happens . Ironically computers save all sorts of temporary files that are not much use but AbiWord does not allow its BAK files to be saved .

What puzzles me is  why the BAK files are hidden and there is no Menu option to recover them ?
 If the BAK file is opened manually it appears in the history list but not automatically

[justme2]

According to  http://wclp.sourceforge.net/documentation/userguide/ch02.html see 'Recovering from crashes'

backups are saved to the same directory as the original file, as .back~ files which can be opened as normal AbiWord files.

So it seems to me that if there are no .bak files in the original directory, then for some reason, autosave did not work.

[Colin23erk]

thanks --Other people have tried this approach with no luck with Abi .

I tried > right click >  then  "Open with" it gave Wordpad as an option  When I tried this this I got some text the first few lines are below



<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE abiword PUBLIC "-//ABISOURCE//DTD AWML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.abisource.com/awml.dtd">
<abiword template="false" xmlns:ct="http://www.abisource.com/changetracking.dtd" xmlns:fo="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Format" xmlns:math="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xid-max="505" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" styles="unlocked" fileformat="1.0" xmlns:svg="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" xmlns:awml="http://www.abisource.com/awml.dtd" xmlns="http://www.abisource.com/awml.dtd" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" version="0.99.2" xml:space="preserve" props="dom-dir:ltr; document-footnote-restart-section:0; document-endnote-type:numeric; document-endnote-place-enddoc:1; document-endnote-initial:1; lang:en-US; document-endnote-restart-section:0; document-footnote-restart-page:0; document-footnote-type:numeric; document-footnote-initial:1; document-endnote-place-endsection:0">
<!-- ======================================================================== -->
<!-- This file is an AbiWord document.                                        -->
<!-- AbiWord is a free, Open Source word processor.                           -->
<!-- More information about AbiWord is available at http://www.abisource.com/ -->
<!-- You should not edit this file by hand.                                   -->
<!-- ======================================================================== -->

<metadata>
<m key="abiword.date_last_changed">Thu Nov 12 15:56:50 2015
</m>
<m key="abiword.generator">AbiWord</m>
<m key="dc.creator">Colin</m>
<m key="dc.date">Thu Nov 12 15:56:50 2015
</m>
<m key="dc.format">application/x-abiword</m>
</metadata>
<rdf>
</rdf>
<history version="1" edit-time="5398" last-saved="1447343810" uid="d0b27bf0-80a8-11e5-83cd-ba2a33da6eb0">
<version id="1" started="1446390127" uid="851d9cd2-80a9-11e5-83cd-ba2a33da6eb0" auto="0" top-xid="2"/>
<version id="1" started="1447343810" uid="fcb27420-8955-11e5-9de3-f3dc0ace312d" auto="0" top-xid="497"/>
</history>
<styles>

[Wirezfree]

right click the Win 10.rtf.bak~. and rename the file to Win 10.rtf

It maybe the extension that is causing the issue..??

[Colin23erk]

Hi firenice03

Thanks for the command

Last I can think of is.. a "find"... You would need to know the name or partial name of the file - assuming a tmp file  keeps part of it
And you will need to do this in terminal... (Alt Ctrl T)
Code: [Select]
sudo find / -iname *FILE*
replace FILE with your files name..

I was hoping that there was a way of searching for fies in Hidden Folders . I would have preferred a GUI version but I have used the CLI that you supplied but cannot find any other documents than the ones I know about ttcaxe hat are hidden in my Home/Colin  folder . I tried trying to find , BAK  , abw , Abi , Hospital , tmp
I found the command very good and will try to remember it for use in the future . My problem with using the CLI is not only do I need to remember the command but also the precise syntax. Probably if your young and have to use them often the become second nature . If your as long in the tooth as I am and not a quick learner (not even at 17 never mind 71) they are not user friendly .

 Abi word did created a .BAK for a document I created on 12 Nov but AbiWord is unable to open it ? (AbiWord cannot open /home/colin/Lenovo Upgrade to Win 10.rtf.bak~. It appears to be an invalid document)

I am left wondering if my doc was actually auto saved in spite of the option being ticked in preference by default . The results I got from my various searches I am as confident as I can be that there are no files generated by Abiword  on my computer. I made a post to see if anyone could help solve the problem of getting  power shutdown instead of a notification when the the power reached it critical point (15% in my case)

The only thing you can Trust computers to do  is to go wrong ! And always at a critical worst moment . Possibly the safest medium is to Print the document every few minute so you have a hard copy

In the  early days of companies using computers I visited a lot in my job setting up private data landlines to other offices I saw  lots of  Printers spewing out reams of FanFold paper into a box on the floor. Thats what I call a HARD COPY data backup .

[firenice03]

Not using AbiWord myself... but most will typically prompt upon reopening after a crash...
That said.. It looks like Auto Save has manual intervention ie. Save interval in minutes (if configured)..
Depending on time interval and crash - it may not have saved.. If a lengthy interval..
After scouring the usuals - TMP, Application Directory, Docs Folder etc...

Last I can think of is.. a "find"... You would need to know the name or partial name of the file - assuming a tmp file  keeps part of it
And you will need to do this in terminal... (Alt Ctrl T)

Code: [Select]

sudo find / -iname *FILE* replace FILE with your files name..

I use sudo as it will omit permission denied results (sudo has access to all)...
Find where on the drive "/" (root)
-iname = the name of the file.. -i ignores case
*FILE* = "*" are wild card characters in-front and behind part of the name ie *hospital* or *untitled* or *Docum*

Good Luck!!
Oh and CLOSE Terminal when your finished so no longer using sudo...

PS Save often - Save Frequent... Ctrl S is your friend... And never trust a hard drive
Can lay down some stories where someone has worked hours on end then POOF and their presentation is in 10 mins...

[Colin23erk]

Thanks for trying to help . When I come across this type of problem I wonder if the developers try to use their own programs in normal every day use after they have made modifications to see if they work as they intended. Ideally they should ask someone not involved to do a test run to see if they encounter problems that an expert would not have thought of .
 
It reminds me of an old tale about a old woman who took her car to the garage because it was not running well . The mechanics checked it and found nothing wrong . She kept coming back and every time no problem was found . Eventually some bright spark asked her to drive while he checked to see what she was complaining about .  She got in the seat pulled out the manual choke and hung her handbag on it . Thats why they could not find a problem . As engineers they would never leave the choke out any longer than necessary . The moral of the story is users do things differently than expected .

My only hope now is to find someone who knows all the ins and outs of AbiWord . At the moment it is not as programs are supposed to be intuitive to use and its function not well documented . We are not supposed to need any help

Colin 

 
 

[Wirezfree]

I have never used AbiWord
Normally in such applications there is a setting somewhere, it allows "you" to set a default path to documents,
like: /home/colin/documents/AbiWord (assuming you create a AbiWord folder in Documents)


((FYI: I always create folders in advance for most apps that save "documents" in my Documents folder, and additional folders for things like pdf's))


Again, Not knowing AbiWord, I assume the Autosave is supposed to run once you have saved it the 1st Time..??


So what was in your "Hospital Trust" document..??, I guess nothing.??


One last place to possibly look..?? is in /tmp/

[Colin23erk]

It was saved in in the in the Default -- /home/colin/

I have just looked for Hidden folders and found one named   Untitled1.bak~ but that is empty except for a "p"

Here is a list of the contents of Colin Folder including Hidden ones The one I saved is the highlighted Hospital Trust one


/home/colin/.adobe
/home/colin/.cache
/home/colin/.clamtk
/home/colin/.config
/home/colin/.dbus
/home/colin/.fonts
/home/colin/.gconf
/home/colin/.gimp-2.8
/home/colin/.gnome
/home/colin/.gnome2
/home/colin/.gnome2_private
/home/colin/.gnupg
/home/colin/.gstreamer-0.10
/home/colin/.java
/home/colin/.local
/home/colin/.macromedia
/home/colin/.mozilla
/home/colin/.pki
/home/colin/.Skype
/home/colin/.ssh
/home/colin/.thumbnails
/home/colin/.thunderbird
/home/colin/.wine
/home/colin/Desktop
/home/colin/.asoundrc
/home/colin/.bash_history
/home/colin/.bashrc
/home/colin/.dmrc
/home/colin/.gksu.lock
/home/colin/.gtk-bookmarks
/home/colin/.gtkrc-2.0
/home/colin/.ICEauthority
/home/colin/.times .rtf
/home/colin/.root_hist
/home/colin/.Xauthority
/home/colin/.xscreensaver
/home/colin/.xsession-errors
/home/colin/.xsession-errors.old
/home/colin/1---Documents
/home/colin/1--Downloaded Programs
/home/colin/1---Music
/home/colin/1---Pictures
/home/colin/1---Quarry (86 items, totalling 1.4 G)
/home/colin/1---video
/home/colin/first direct !.pdf
/home/colin/first direct 2.pdf
/home/colin/first direct 3.pdf

/home/colin/Hospital Trust.rtf    ********************

/home/colin/HP Stream service manual.pdf
/home/colin/HP Stream user manual.pdf
/home/colin/Lenovo Upgrade to Win 10.rtf.bak~
/home/colin/pb132629-food-date-labelling-110915.pdf
/home/colin/Renault to Kenwood .pdf
/home/colin/touchpad-blocker.exe

/home/colin/Untitled1.bak~ ******************

/home/colin/XP fix .png

[Wirezfree]

So what is in the actual directory that you were saving this document to.??

[Colin23erk]

Hi


I had a premature shut down ( see other post ) which resulted in AbiWord closing and a Letter that I was preparing for over an hour was lost .


But as AbiWord is set up to Auto save every 5 mins its not a calamity .
So all I need is to get it back .>>>>but how ??


Could not find a an option in ABI programs own  Menu's


Tried Help > help contents >search >got "The [/size]AbiWord website[/size] can be searched )  > No "Search " option available
[/size]
[/size]Tried Twiki > searched for Auto Save & Autosave with similar outcomes





[/size]No page title matches

[/size]There is no page titled "autosave".
[/size]For more information about searching AbiWiki, see Help.
[/size]No page title matchesThere is no page titled "autosave".
For more information about searching AbiWiki, see Help. [/color][/font][/size]No page text matchesNote: Only some namespaces are searched by default. Try prefixing your query with all: to search all content (including talk pages, templates, etc), or use the desired namespace as prefix.
autosave[/font]
Search[/font]
No page text matches[/font]

[/font]

Tried Googling - it is a known issue but unable to find a Solved post


All I gleaned was the Auto Saves were a .BAK file  in a Hidden folder  without a known place it might be searched for .


I tried a Catfish Search of my "File System " for .BAK  but the results did not include any from AbiWord
Then  searched for ABI found the file of my letter I saved as a named file soon after I started a New Document .


Can anyone help me (hopefully intact ) where ABI put its files .


What is the sense of having an Auto Save feature that is not easily accessible when disaster strikes




Colin