Well this project was a real grind...

[Pete]

I finally got my builds project completed last night. Basically it takes any .bas program I make and moves it to a BAS sub-folder. All I have to do is slap a -1, -2, 2a, whatever version number on the tail end, like abc-1.bas. The program gets rid of all untitled exe programs, and moves all earlier builds to a project folder in the builds folder, so abc-1.bas would get moved to: builds\abc\abc-1.bas, while the current abc-2.bas would remain in the BAS folder. It also saves the current build exe in an exe folder, and deletes all the previous exe builds. It really helps me not have to go in manually to clear out clutter. I'm just surprised it took me almost an extra week to get it finished. It seemed like it was really fighting me to be completed.

Pete

[Petr]

Yeah, I also know that...  And now imagine the mess (mine) when you have one program written on two computers (without network) and forgot last version to copy. I often follow the date of the file, it has worked so many times. :-D

[Pete]

Similar situation with QB64 on three computers and a backup drive. I wish I had the time and energy to start making videos, to remember what all those older programs did. Back in the DOS 8.3 days, you could only use 8 characters and a .bas extension to name a file. I don't miss that stupid restriction, but it's my fault for not making fully named build folders back in those days. For instance, I could have created a folder called Persistent-Windows_perwin and put my perwin1.bas, perwin2.bas, ...perwin15.bas files in it. Oh well, 20/20 hind sight.

Pete

[SMcNeill]

Have you looked at my AUTOSAVE mod?  It might help you organize your code as well, if you like to save multiple versions of the source as you work on it.  https://www.qb64.org/forum/index.php?topic=605.msg4775#msg4775

[Pete]

What the hell does that have to do with the price of beans in Bolivia?

Actually, I went over to your boards to have a look at the description of the original code. I can't say I've ever experienced what you went through, but I do get why you coded it. What I do is save every time I feel I've made some sort of significant progress. I like keeping the old builds around, but they they are either buggy or not completed or both. Maybe someday I'll convince myself to just pitch them, well, once a project is finished, of course. Until a project is completed, yes, having builds helps if you have to punt on a new concept and go back to start over on an earlier build. Lucky for me, I can only remember that happening twice in 38 years. Lucky me! If I ever do put myself into a situation like you described, I' absolutely give your routine a go.

I do use the Ctrl+Z UNDO feature, occasionally. Your autosave is similar to that type of protection, as accidents can happen with cut and paste code additions / deletions. I totally get that very large cut and paste manipulations could over-stress that ability, but I haven't encountered that problem so far.

The QB64 auto-recovery feature has saved my ascii on more than a couple of occasions. In fact, now I just rely on the fact it is there. A few weeks ago, a %$^ %$^% Windows update snuck into my system... while it was on SLEEP! It rebooted and I had 10 QB64 windows lost. Auto-recovery restored all of them. All I had to do was to figure out, by comparing the files, if the recovery files had been saved by me already, or if I needed to name them and save them as a newer build. That's not much of an inconvenience, considering what I might have lost without such a feature.

Thanks,

Pete