Avoiding Unintended Deletions

[laup]

Twice in the same number of months, I have inadvertantly deleted most of a lengthy manuscript. I discovered this only when, while editing, I noticed that a figure number, which should have been, say, 5.3, was now 0.3. Upon looking at the outline, I found that all of the early chapters were gone. The backups helped, but did not solve the problem of losing quite a bit of work that I had done in the session before the material disappeared.

I'm sure that whatever happened was "my fault," but I am mystified by why the deletion it occurred or how to avoid the problem in the future. Has anyone else encountered and solved this problem?

Are there any key combinations, including unintended combinations that might be caused while hovering over a PowerBook and its trackpad, or operations involving the outline, or operations with Scan/Unscan with Bookends, that might cause the problem? Are there any preferences that would protect against such things?

Although I normally hate software messages such as "Do you really mean to....?", it would have saved me a lot of grief if Mellel had a message when, say, someone tried to delete material of any length.

[macsailor]

If you have activated the auto backup, you would be able to recover your deleted text. Have a look at ~/Library/Application Support/Mellel/Backup

[Eyal Redler]

My guess is that this happened by pressing delete while in the outline. This causes the selected section to be deleted and there is no "Are you sure?" dialog.

[nicka]

My guess is that this happened by pressing delete while in the outline. This causes the selected section to be deleted and there is no "Are you sure?" dialog.

I wonder if we could have a preference to turn on a confirmation dialogue for deletions from the outline. With undo in its current unfinished state I'm a bit afraid of losing data this way.

[macsailor]

My guess is that this happened by pressing delete while in the outline. This causes the selected section to be deleted and there is no "Are you sure?" dialog.

I wonder if we could have a preference to turn on a confirmation dialogue for deletions from the outline. With undo in its current unfinished state I'm a bit afraid of losing data this way.

Agree on this one. It could be a lifesaver one of these days.

[nicka]

Or, thinking about it more, perhaps it should alert you when you take out more than a certain amount of text, eg a page's worth, however you delete it -- via delete in the outline or by selecting a lot of text then hitting delete.

[laup]

I suspect that Eyal's explanation is the correct one and I surely agree with the suggestion that something (warning or whatever) should be done to prevent this from happening. Thanks.

[danzac]

This is a good request.

[noumenal]

This is a good request.

I would like to add my support for a box requesting user confirmation whenever anything is deleted via the outline pane.

[nvalvo]

What is actually needed is not babysitting dialog boxes (trust me, you would not like that if they actually did it, and I am confident they won't), but proper version control. We've been discussing this over in the Nitty and the Gritty, and if done right, this could be a strong feature, which could aid in collaboration, multiple (and selective) undo, and management of different versions of the same document.

[Mart°n]

What is actually needed is not babysitting dialog boxes (trust me, you would not like that if they actually did it, and I am confident they won't), but proper version control. We've been discussing this over in the Nitty and the Gritty, and if done right, this could be a strong feature, which could aid in collaboration, multiple (and selective) undo, and management of different versions of the same document.

I only could agree on this. Dialog boxes that interrupt your work are a terrible idea. If I hit the delete key, I like the selected part to be deleted. If one likes to test the experience of interrupting dialog boxes, one should try to work some days with Windows Vista. It really isn’t a nice experience.

[nicka]

I disagree. I think dialogue boxes confirming irreversible deletions are a good option. I leave on the confirmation on emptying the trash in the Finder, for example, and I have been grateful for it. I know that this is not an irreversible deletion, technically, but given there's no viewable undo history and that the ability to undo is completely lost on save it is close to being that way.

If the option only applied to large chunks of text, say longer than a page, and could be turned off in preferences by those who are quite sure of what they are doing, wouldn't your objections go away?

[Mart°n]

I disagree. I think dialogue boxes confirming irreversible deletions are a good option.

That’s true. A dialog box that confirms irreversible deletion is a good thing.

I leave on the confirmation on emptying the trash in the Finder, for example, and I have been grateful for it.

I do the same.

I know that this is not an irreversible deletion, technically, but given there's no viewable undo history and that the ability to undo is completely lost on save it is close to being that way.

With the current feature set, it could lead to a technically irreversible deletion but that’s the fault of the current undo option that doesn’t work as it should. Because of this, one could think of the dialog box as a solution to the problem but I think it’s a workaround and a bad one too. It’s like a patch, a virus scanner that scans for viruses instead of a OS that is secure from viruses (maybe not possible to create), it’s like a can that collects the raindrops that came through your leaking roof.

If the option only applied to large chunks of text, say longer than a page, and could be turned off in preferences by those who are quite sure of what they are doing, wouldn't your objections go away?

No, they wouldn’t. Let me explain.
The dialog box that pops up if you like to empty the trash is a good one, as they remember you to think twice about the action. You could actually delete the trash with your complete home folder inside that you may have dropped onto it accidentally. The problem with emptying the trash is, that you don’t see what’s inside if you empty it (given you haven’t opened a finder window). The message reminds you that you may look at the content a last time before you throw it away.
In Mellel, of course, the same paradigm doesn’t apply because you always see what you do. If you press a key (given it’s a letter key) you instantly see the results. If you delete a page, you instantly see the results. If you delete a chapter from the outline pane, you not only see the chapter go away from this pane but you also see the content of the paper area to jump to a completely different position (the previous chapter). So you don’t have a chance to delete something without noticing it (if you are blind or close your eyes while pressing the delete key, you may be able to do this, of course, but I don’t think that we talk about those situations). Now, if you see that something strange happened, you have the chance to undo this action so the situation of deleting a page of text could not be compared to emptying the trash IMHO.

The second point pertains the sensitivity. Given that such a option will be built into Mellel, when should the window pop up? If you delete a line, a page, 5 pages, more than 2 headlines or more than 10 headlines?
If you delete a chapter from the outline pane, it may only consist of half a page but the content – the formula to save the world – may have been the most important part of your 5000 pages book. Now it’s gone. If you delete something unintentional, it never is a pleasure. Maybe you’ve deleted a big part of your – still empty – outline without having noticed the action, which would lead to a lot of work if you like to rewrite it, but the dialog didn’t pop up because the raw content (some lines) are less than a page long? You would like to decrease the sensitivity. If you delete two sentence accidentally and the window don’t pop up, you would like to decrease the sensitivity to some words only because you’re frightened of loosing some content. But that leads to a window popping up all the time. I think I’m already paranoid but I don’t want such a window to pop up.
The point is, no matter which value you chose for the window to pop up, it could never really prevent you from loosing something important. That’s the reason why I don’t like the window, not even as a option. It doesn’t solve the problem and it doesn’t give you what you want. It’s a workaround that could work in some situations but also could fail in others.

A solution that works in any case, is the discussed (in the Nitty & Gritty Forums) undo option that allows you to browse back to the very first letter you’ve typed. A complete undo history off all the actions you’ve done in completing your work. So instead of spending time to introduce a lousy workaround, I vote for a rock solid undo feature (that should include a complete history with branches, a version management, milestones and so on).

In the meantime, it may help looking at the screen if one hits the delete key. There’s already a lot of feedback to discover. Also saving versions (save your document two times a day into a new file with a increased number - World saving formula 03.mellel) gives you the chance of opening older versions of your document where the deleted part could be found. The already existing backup feature (Mellel › Preferences › Open & Save › Automatic backup every xx minutes – saved to ~/Library/Application Support/Mellel/Backup) may help to keep some world saving stuff.