[IPython-User] autosave in notebook

[Zoltán Vörös]

Hi Brian,

On one hand, I see your point, on the other hand, I don't. I agree that 
unintentionally overwriting existing and valid data with new, but faulty 
one is a problem. However, just as big a problem is when the browser 
fails, and you lose the data altogether.

As a temporary solution, couldn't there be a backup file to which one 
could autosave every 5 minutes, or whatever, and you would only write to 
the master file when pressing the "Save" button? That would eliminate 
the issue you raised, but would still be more than nothing.

If that is an acceptable solution (writing to notebook.ipynb.backup 
every 5 minutes), I still don't know how one would implement this. I 
could set up a timer, and call save_notebook(), but how can I retrieve 
the currently active tab in the browser? If I write the timer function 
into the notebook template, will the same timer apply to all open 
notebooks, or only the active one? Besides, I am not certain at all as 
to where exactly the timer should be.

Any comments on this, or you think that this approach is just an ugly 
hack, and it is really not worthwhile?
Cheers,
Zoltán


On 01/15/2012 08:34 PM, Brian Granger wrote:
> Autosave without version control built-in is a recipe for data loss
> disaster.  To prevent unwanted losses from autosave, you need the
> ability to rewind and recover lost work.  This is something we are
> thinking about, but is still a ways off.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Brian
>
> 2012/1/15 Zoltán Vörös<zvoros@gmail.com>:
>> Hi All,
>>
>> I am sorry for spamming the mailing list, but I happen to use the
>> notebook quite a lot at the moment, and during this I find myself facing
>> newer and newer questions. I try to find the answer, before posting the
>> problem here:)
>> Is there a way to set autosave on on the html notebook? I don't mean the
>> content of the cells, because that could be pulled out of the history
>> (at least, the inputs), but the notebook as a whole. I see that for
>> large notebooks with many images this might create a bottleneck, but if
>> the user was able to switch this off/on, that would be great.
>>
>> I believe, one would only have to set up a timer in javascript, and call
>> the function that is invoked on Cntr-M-S. I could look into this, but I
>> don't know, whether there is already an effort under way.
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Zoltán
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>