4.2 Revisions

[cadjockey]

Just wanted to say, thanks for the revisions tab but it would be nice if you could mark certain revisions as milestones that should be kept regardless of the amount of revisions set in the preferences. It is quite easy to save while working and overwrite a previous revision.  A simple flag to say, keep this one and don't count it in the allowed qty would be awesome.  Also, allow a simple comment by each revision, so you can put notes about what is in that revision should you need to.

Rich

[thomasteger]

Wouldn't you save this as a different version then if it is considered a milestone?

[cadjockey]

Of course you could, but then you could say that about revisions in general.

In my mind it is just a convenient way of tracking the progression of the design and being able to backtrack if necessary.  During development we might go through many different colours and options, you don't really want the hassle of changing and tracking multiple files if this tool could do it for you. 

At the moment I really wouldn't call it a revision system, especially for those of use in the habit of ctrl+s saving often (bitten by too many poor packages in the past I guess) you can easily use up your 5 backups very quickly. Yes, I could allow more but really thats probably not the right way to approach it.

Our PCB layout software has a similar system to what I propose and it works so well and the ability to add a comment is great.

of course, my 2c only....

Rich

[TpwUK]

Am I missing the point here ? Is this not covered with incremental saving ?

Martin

[cadjockey]

To my mind its just a logical extension of incremental saves, just a bit more flexible.  I really wouldn't want to increase the history depth beyond 5 as it would quickly eat up space with 500meg files.  I would overwrite the 1st backup within an hour and could never go back to it.
This method would just allow you to try a few different results, and effectively bookmark them to go back to if you wanted. Of course at some point you may decide you don't need them and you can just clear the 'keep' flag and it would carry on with the last 5 instead.

I can work around it by saving as a new name like Thomas said, I just would have preferred not to.

[Chad Holton]

Hey Rich,

Thanks for the feedback. Revision saving is a new feature, as you're well aware, and improvements are always welcome. Just wondering how the revision saving works in the mentioned "PCB layout software"? Each time you save, does it ask you for a note or how does that work exactly? Maybe a screenshot or something may help me visualize what you're after.

Thanks,
Chad

[cadjockey]

Hi Chad.

No it never asks for a note, it works very similar to your revision system. The difference comes if you do want to keep one or more revisions, you go into the revision manager select the previous backup, right click on it and select 'label' you can then add your comment.  The system then ignores this file in the normal incremental save and never deletes it. So if you selected to have 5 incremental backups and you opted to label one of them you now get six files. The system carries on as before but you have a 'safe' save point.

Its a little more involved on this system because it allows you to compare revisions etc but the principle is the same and it works well.

I attached an image of their 'revision manager' including the right click options.  You can see I have 8 previously saved versions but version 6 is labelled and will always be there.

Hope that makes sense, and thanks for at least considering it

Rich