by Sascha René Leib
_____________________________________________________________
What is it?
A file backup system that keeps a version history of your current project.
What is it for?
The first rule in programming is: "Save often". Following that rule in RealBasic, you will get accustomed to press Command-S, Command-R whenever you wat to test your App (if you don't do that, you should start that now!)
That leads to another problem: You may inadvertedly overwrite a "good" version with that crappy bug you just hacked in. And if your computer crashed (or you pressed quit), you may have lost your Undo data and spend your day finding that bug.
If you're lucky, you have an older version of your project file somewhere around. It's often easier to re-do your changes from an older version than to go backwards.
How handy would it be to automatically save the project file to a different filename every, say, 5 minutes, to have a version history that allows me to go back to any point. Well, in short, that's what this program does.
How to use it?
When you start RealBackup, a window like this one will open automatically:
What you do is exactly this. Drop your project file onto the window, or press the button to select the file using Apple's great Navigation Services dialog box (oh, I love them! Especially since I found out what fine things you can do with the "Favourites" button ;-)
By default, your file will be backed up every 5 minutes, but only if the file really has changed. If the file hasn't changed, it will check again in one minute.
You can change the backup-period in the preferences dialog, but I think 5 minutes are a good value, because you don't want a backup for every nervous "Command-S" you press while thinking about a programming problem (I do that a lot! ;-)
Of course, you can always force a backup by pressing the "Now" button.
For the backups, the program will first create a folder with the same name as the file to backup, plus a "f" at the end. Then all backup files contain the date and time of the backup in the name. This makes it easier to find the right one.
BTW: I prefer to set the backup folder to Icon view, with small icons and "Sort by Modification Date" set in the "View Options" dialog. Just a hint... :-)
Any more hints?
Quite a few of them:
- You can monitor multiple files. Just select "New" from the file menu to open another window.
- you can directly drop any file onto the "RealBackup" icon to start to monitor it.
- The source code is prepared for localizations. If you'd like a different language version, just edit the constants in the "ApplicationSpecific" module. German texts are already in it.
- The PPC-version uses
Who can use it?
Everyone. I mean, everyone with a Mac. Hm, a Windows version should in fact be easy to do but I don't need one. I have attached the source code, so feel free to give it a try..
I mean, what does it cost?
Ah, well, nothing, of course. This is really just a small and simple application. Feel free to use it as you like. You can even modify the source code and use it in your own apps, although it would be nice if you'd at least mention my name in the docs or the about box, yes?
Legaleze
No cash, no guarantee. That's it. Use it on your own risk.
The Author:
is a humanist, after all, and not a programmer, so if there's any strange behaviour in this software, it's probably according to some obscure sociological theory. He's also not a business man, that's why he keeps writing this programs and releasing them for free.
He is commited to RealBasic ever since the company who made his previous IDE went bankrupt. Which was probably because he didn't contribute so much to that community - or rather because they didn't do anything, nobody knows.
He founded the world's first RealBasic User Group, which was ment to be a joke and turned out to be huge success. People from all over the world wanted to join the "Realbasic User Group Finland" - probably because nobody really knows where and what Finland is.
If he's not working on Freeware programs he's employed by Tietovalta, a place that calls itself a Multimedia company but in reality is just a bunch of people who get payed for doing what they would do anyway. They have so much fun with it that it has recently become the biggest MM company in all of Finland :-)
Oh yes, if you have questions or problems, he usually tries to help. Not always successfull, as it seems but at least he tries ;-)
Here's his address:
Sascha René Leib
Pispankatu 25 B 11
33240 Tampere
- Suomi/Finland -
sascha.leib@uta.fi
sascha.leib@tietovalta.fi
http://www.uta.fi/~sl59606/
http://www.tietovalta.fi/~sascha/realbug/
Acknowledgements:
The PPC-Version uses Dustin Mierau's great "Proxy Icons PlugIn".
This program is based on my "RB Stationery" framework which can be downloaded from the RealBUG site "http://www.tietovalta.fi/~sascha/realbug/"
Version history
1.0 Initial Release.
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