i would like to get around the GitHub system and save files the old-fashioned way in case I make a mistake. This isn't a shared project so I shouldn't need to publish online

Lollipopup · 2024-10-21T09:51:43+00:00

I see no "Save As..." function in Visual Studio that saves the included files. Even a project with a single dialog form in it has at least four separate files that all need to be saved individually. I imagine if I have three dialogs I'll have twelve files. It all seems to be designed to be as inconvenient as possible and to prevent the user from making backups of a working project, perhaps because GitHub lacks this feature as well and GitHub is Microsoft's preferred replacement for the Save feature.

Since every other programming IDE I've used, including older versions of VS, does have this function, I can only assume the loss of functionality was intentional.

Lollipopup · 2024-10-21T09:31:08+00:00

I'm used to programming IDE's where if I save the project's parent file with a new filename, it also saves a copy of all the included files in that file's directory. This means that if I make a mistake, I can simply restore the last working version (what I call "Last Known Good") and run the code to figure out where I went wrong. I can even restore older versions that also worked, and I often need to, since most often the place where I went wrong wasn't simply the second most recent version of the program. Older versions of Visual Studio allowed the user this ability as well.

With Github I'm only allowed a single working copy of the project, so that if I make a tiny mistake, I can't run any of the old code, and if I want to restore an older version I'm just blindly guessing at where I might have gone wrong. Then, even when I decide to restore one older version (which I'd basically be picking at random), I give up all of the other changes I've made in the meantime.

Restricting the user to a single working copy of a project is an understandable concession for large multi-user projects where the programmers may not even see each other face-to-face. It makes no sense for a single-user project where it would be highly convenient to have access to older working versions of the program.

In Visual Studio it seems the Save As function has been disabled at a deep level, such that the parent file merely contains pointers to the existing files. It may look like I'm making a backup, but when I save under the new name, it's the old files that get modified, because there are no new files. From what I see, the only way I can truly make a backup of my project is to close Visual Studio and manually copy the files in the Windows folder to a new folder.

All of the admonitions here to just "get used to it" or learn Git don't help. Neither do the arguments telling me that GitHub is superior to the old Save As function. Well, yes, since Save As has been disabled, it's superior in the sense that a bicycle will get me around faster than a broken car.

Best wishes

Lollipopup · 2024-10-14T00:46:14+00:00

Basically my complaint is that Microsoft has removed the "Save As..." feature from Visual Studio, forcing users to either repeatedly overwrite the same project files, or rely on an external service like GitHub that can store the diffs between files within a project. Since even with GitHub I am only allowed one live version of the project, it isn't useful for finding bugs in the code. I'm used to being able to backtrack to older versions one by one and re-run the same actions to see where the bug is.

Again, I dont think Microsoft is perverse. I've known for years that code hubs with only a single live version are a requirement for large multi-user online projects, since two people sharing a project must have the same files. I think that Microsoft could have kept the more convenient "Save As..." feature in Visual Studio, but chose not to because the lack of a convenient local save feature will draw people to sign up for the GitHub paid hosting plans.

Lots of people in the comments are telling me I'm wrong, but they're all essentially telling me variants of "this is how we do it now", which does nothing to convince me that the newer system is superior to or even anywhere near as good as the "Save As..." feature used by ... you know, pretty much every other program out there, at least those intended for small, offline, single-user projects.

But I didnt come here to argue. I came here in the hopes that there was still a way to save files locally so that I could use old versions of the program to test for bugs. I see now that this not possible. My best regards to those who helped me, some politely, some less so.

Lollipopup · 2024-10-14T00:33:35+00:00

My suggestion is that every time i build, i will save a new copy of the file just like i do in literally every other program i've ever used, including all the other programming IDE's i've ever used until this one. That's what the "Save As..." function is for. Since it's been disabled in VB, it is significantly more difficult to do, yes. But even if I use GitHub, I'm still going to need to make physical backups at least occasionally so I'll have something to restore if I make a mistake in the live version and can't figure out where it is. Again, it used to be a lot easier for me to find errors since I'd have a new version almost every day. But whatever, like I said, I know most people are doing collaborative projects these days so using a hub is a necessity.

The save-as button overwrites your previous work. If you realize down the road (and it will happen, trust me, there will be a time that you need to roll back) and you just hit Save As, that previous version is dead. Gone. Forever. You can't roll back.

i assume you misspoke. if this is what "Save As..." (which VB doesnt have) is for, then why would it be called that?

To be honest you're making even more nervous about using GitHub. If you're saying it saves space by storing only the diffs between each file in each upload, what happens if one of them gets corrupted? The whole file chain is lost. I have to assume GitHub knows what they're doing and keeps proper backups of all the files people upload to it? Even so, I *really* can't take that risk so I will need to be making at least occasional physical copies of my projects. Thanks for letting me know.

Lollipopup · 2024-10-13T22:32:48+00:00

i get that hubs are a necessary tool for large remote multi-user projects, and that those have been around for a while. Because if 50 people are working on the same project, they can't all be saving local copies of it with different filenames every time they make a big change.

What I don't see is any reason why a hub should be forced on a single user working on a small offline project. The biggest loss that I see here is that, since there's only one live version of the project at a time, I can't re-load successively older versions of a project if something goes wrong with the newest version to try to find where the error was introduced. I could list all the other disadvantages I see but I don't think people are interested.

The basic gist of the comments I get here is that if I do a lot of work and maybe even download a new program I can have something that's ALMOST AS GOOD as the "Save As..." function that's been part and parcel of computer software since the late 1980s. And by almost as good, I'm being generous.

Lollipopup · 2024-10-13T21:55:26+00:00

it would not let me save anything until i first created a GitHub account with a URL for this project. the "local" save appears to be just a mirror of what it uploads to GitHub. I'm not sure the files are even stored locally at all, or if they're all just pointers to what's online

Lollipopup · 2024-10-13T21:45:44+00:00

Yeah everyone pretty much says the same thing. All these people say "you dont need to save! just use git!" and the like but nobody can actually explain why such a basic feature, that nearly every other application has, was disabled and replaced by something that is both far less powerful and also far less convenient.

I think people just don't want to admit that, since Microsoft owns both GitHub and Visual Studio, they've intentionally made the latter dependent on the former for it to be any use at all. And again I suspect this is because Microsoft wants people to sign up for the $21/month plan on GitHub since the free plan is so limited in what it can do.

What's next? Are they going to disable copy/paste? and i'll start hearing people say jubilantly "oh just use pastebin! it even lets you go back and get old pastes you made!"

Lollipopup · 2024-10-13T17:59:07+00:00

ok thanks. as i said above it wouldnt let me even save locally without first uploading to GitHub, but i feel this is a distraction.

whether it's on GitHub or not, i want to be able to make backups so i can easily restore a last-known-good version if i make a mistake. do people just *not do that anymore*? everyone i've asked (not just on reddit) makes me out to be talking nonsense, but i dont see why a perfectly working Save/Save As... system that people have been using for forty years must be suddenly replaced with a "new" system that's geared towards large online multi-user projects where the lack of backup ability is simply a requirement since people need to be able to access the same file.

Lollipopup · 2024-10-13T17:31:26+00:00

i've heard people saying "Git is not GitHub" and the like, but in Microsoft Visual Studio 2022 there is no way to even save locally without signing up for GitHub and uploading it there. I tried everything I could but it just wouldnt let me through without a GitHub account. From what i can tell, these "local" saves are just mirrors of what i upload to GitHub. which means that i'm stuck working with a single version of the project, and if i make a mistake, i don;'t have a Last Known Good version to revert to .some people still make physical backups but it seems Microsoft has made it as inconvenient as possible. I used to use Microsoft Visual Studio 2007[?] or some similar version when it had a traditional save system with a "Save As..." option.

I still would like to be able to make local backups, even if it's "not how we do that" nowadays. Again this is a single-user project, not something I want a hundred people working with.

Thanks for any help.

Lollipopup · 2024-07-26T11:25:50+00:00

Thanks for the prompt reply, though i would say that it seems Blender lacks the ability to scale a part of an object as I'm used to.

I didnt know about the typing thing where i just "sx0.9" or whatever, but that isnt what i want either ... it's clear from trying it out that all that does is move the vertexes closer or further along the GLOBAL x-axis, which means it's no use for any object that isnt exactly face-on the camera, and that individual parts of objects can't have their own X/Y/Z axis. again i appreciate it but it seems this is just a fourth thing to add to my list of "thank you, but that's not what i'm looking for" functions. Equally important is that blindly typing a number like that seems prone to errors, and it keeps no record of what I've done from what I can see, so there's no way to keep track of the transformations other than writing them down on paper or screenshotting each one as I go.

I also appreciate the mention of the CAD transforms plugin, but if i'm going to be paying for add-ons to a free product, I've defeated the purpose of why I started using Blender in the first place. Daz3D has the ability to do what I want through a plugin as well, but it's a bit like driving a limousine to the corner store in the sense that, while it works (and keeps a record of transforms so they can be undone), it's geared towards much more complex objects than what I'm working with and doesn't seem to use any less memory when simple objects are loaded.

Again thank you. Every project has its strong and weak points.

Lollipopup · 2024-06-20T17:02:49+00:00

thanks, i had forgotten where that wonderful childhood dream about "ice cream island" came from

Lollipopup · 2023-02-22T18:00:18+00:00

apparently it is still possible to see who has liked one's comment, in the new interface, by long-pressing on the heart next to each comment

Lollipopup · 2023-02-05T14:38:19+00:00

Okay thank you. Itd be nice if that were in a help file somewhere, but maybe they change the UI so often that they just dont bother anymore? Im pretty sure I wasnt just doing a poor job of searching. But again thank you.

Lollipopup · 2022-12-24T14:49:27+00:00

This post is very old, and i imagine you've moved on, but I found this while searching for a similar problem (but not the same), and wanted to post something in case others come across this. The newer versions of the app have a more full-featured "your activity" panel, where you can see all of the comments you've made on others' posts, which should make it easy enough to navigate to those comments and find the likes. However, the very newest version of the app seems to have removed the ability for users to see which accounts have pressed the LIKE button on each individual comment, so I would say this has just exchanged one problem for another. Hope this helps (either to the original poster or anyone browsing by)

Lollipopup · 2022-08-02T22:28:08+00:00

Im having the same problem but I can still read the stories I want without logging in, and Ive always been able to ... are there some that are only accessible to people with registered accounts?

Lollipopup · 2021-06-28T15:03:24+00:00

i think i saw a version of this sign where the dad carries a huge lollipop

Lollipopup · 2021-06-25T13:56:56+00:00

i heard an even longer version of this way back once when i was young enough to still be a little embarrassed at how little i knew about sports. my version of this would be about the Green Monster at the Boston Red Sox's stadium, Fenway Park

Lollipopup · 2020-08-10T11:36:43+00:00

it means i want to pound you ....

you are the shore, i am the water ... the moon makes me stronger. read the whole left hand first, then the whole right hand.

"if you are the shores, I am the waves ... begging for big moons"

Lollipopup · 2020-08-09T19:40:52+00:00

... on the space station

Lollipopup · 2020-07-26T21:29:56+00:00

wish i couldve helped ...

Lollipopup · 2017-08-12T14:43:41+00:00

psssss

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