[Geany-devel] Safe file saving - permissions issue

[Jon Senior]

On Sat, 15 May 2010 14:10:06 +1000
Lex Trotman <elextr at gmail.com> wrote:
> Since it doesn't know the status of the directory the file was in or
> even the whole filesystem, and finding out could cause long delays as
> things time out, it is reasonable to ask the user where it is safe to
> save the file.

I agree. It is more than reasonable, it is to be praised. Better to
harass the user a little than to risk losing data.
 
> When a file of the same name re-appears the application can't know if
> it is intended to be the same object, so it has to ask the user.

Even after a reload. Here's the sequence of events (and this doesn't
require a network drive to simulate)

> touch foo.bar
> geany foo.bar (assumes an existing session)
[Edit file in geany and save using ctrl-s]
> mv foo.bar bar.foo
[Return to geany, you will be prompted that the file can no longer be
found and offered a chance to save it. Choose cancel leaving the file
open but marked as dirty]
> mv bar.foo foo.bar
[Return to geany and choose Reload. You will be asked to confirm and
then the file is reloaded and it is no longer marked as dirty. Make a
change and save with ctrl-s. You will now be presented with a "Save
file" dialog]

This is, I feel, broken logic. The file was marked as dirty but has
been reloaded from disk. A file reloaded from disk should be no
different from a file freshly loaded for the first time. This does not
occur if the file is not moved temporarily. By choosing to reload, the
user has already resynchronised the geany buffer with the file and thus
re-established the link between the buffer and the file. This final
prompt is (in my opinion) superfluous.

Were it not for the painfully long opening time of the save dialog when
dealing with a large networked directory of files, it would be a minor
inconvenience, but while waiting for the dialog to open, you have time
on your hands to think about this stuff! :-)

I don't wish to be critical. This is, frankly, my only issue with geany
(I'd love it if it could convert R to optimised C, but I don't think
that fits into the description of a lightweight editor!). I know that
I'll not have the time to track this down in the source for a while, so
I'm putting it out there. I'm happy to submit a proper bug report if
requested.

Jon