Change Agent: Save early, save often
Losing data is one of our biggest fears when it comes to working with technology. A web site goes down, and we lose that e-mail message we spent an hour composing. A program crashes, and the document or presentation we were working on vanishes. Ever had a mobile phone stolen or run over by a truck? Then you might know how hard it is to recover all of your friends' phone numbers.
As much as we wish StarLogo TNG could be the most reliable piece of software you have ever used, it isn't. Preview 2 is still a beta release, and while it is good enough to use and play with, sometimes it breaks when you least expect it. For that reason, I'll give you the same advice about StarLogo that I would give you about any piece of software: save your project early and save it frequently. That way, if and when StarLogo crashes, you will be able to load your project without having to redo too much yourself.
One caveat is that even the saving and loading mechanism of StarLogo may not always work either. Some users have reported that some of their blocks disappear or show up disconnected when they load their projects. The "Save Next Version" feature can help you avoid extreme data loss from corrupted save files.
After you save a new project for the first time, you can choose File... Save Project to update the existing save file with the current project, or you can choose File... Save Next Version, which preserves your original file and creates a new one with the next available version number appended to it. So if you're working on pacman.sltng, Save Next Version will put a new file called pacman01.sltng in the same folder. Save Next Version again, and you'll be working on pacman02.sltng.
That way, when you try to load the most recent version, you can easily go back to an earlier version if there is a problem. If your project loads without any trouble, then you can safely delete earlier versions of the project.
One last warning: In Preview 2, there is a bug that prevents Save Next Version from warning you if it will overwrite an existing file. So if you are editing pacman.sltng, and you already have a file called pacman01.sltng in the same folder, Save Next Version will overwrite pacman01.sltng without giving you a chance to change your mind first. We'll fix that for the next release.
As much as we wish StarLogo TNG could be the most reliable piece of software you have ever used, it isn't. Preview 2 is still a beta release, and while it is good enough to use and play with, sometimes it breaks when you least expect it. For that reason, I'll give you the same advice about StarLogo that I would give you about any piece of software: save your project early and save it frequently. That way, if and when StarLogo crashes, you will be able to load your project without having to redo too much yourself.
One caveat is that even the saving and loading mechanism of StarLogo may not always work either. Some users have reported that some of their blocks disappear or show up disconnected when they load their projects. The "Save Next Version" feature can help you avoid extreme data loss from corrupted save files.
After you save a new project for the first time, you can choose File... Save Project to update the existing save file with the current project, or you can choose File... Save Next Version, which preserves your original file and creates a new one with the next available version number appended to it. So if you're working on pacman.sltng, Save Next Version will put a new file called pacman01.sltng in the same folder. Save Next Version again, and you'll be working on pacman02.sltng.
That way, when you try to load the most recent version, you can easily go back to an earlier version if there is a problem. If your project loads without any trouble, then you can safely delete earlier versions of the project.
One last warning: In Preview 2, there is a bug that prevents Save Next Version from warning you if it will overwrite an existing file. So if you are editing pacman.sltng, and you already have a file called pacman01.sltng in the same folder, Save Next Version will overwrite pacman01.sltng without giving you a chance to change your mind first. We'll fix that for the next release.
Labels: change agent
posted by Corey McCaffrey at 3:21 PM
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