Im not a pro at computers; and maybe this doesnt even need the concern of the filesystem. though this is a weird idea i came up with… It deals with writers and designers. It will seem more like a software discussion; but please read through it. The idea is still a tad undeveloped; Anyways here it goes:
Generally whenever we are writing documents/reports or written works on PC’s; there are two things that are generally always his worry and decrease his productivity:
*How the document looks; thus in some cases you spend more time formatting it. (word processors in general)
*Fear of crashes; power failure or the like; thus a habit of constantly saving his work. (almost every document related work)
The first issue has been addressed by typesetting engines such as TeX; which let you focus on the structure of the document and not bother bout how it looks. But as for second issue; it prevails in all software – fear of losing data.
Autosave addresses this to some extent; but it saves at
periodical timings and i dont find it reliable enough.
Also in formats such as doc;; the undo work is saved inside the file which is insecure…
So how the two can; IMO; be addressed is…
1)Instead of periodical saves; it should be somehow saved in such a manner that every keystroke/space or such the data is logged. But as this is gonna make the PC slow;; what if the journaling filesystem of BFS somehow support this?
2)Instead of saving the data inside the file itself; it should be saved along the file and will be clipped off when you send it to other computers; by keeping it unique to the filesystem thus providing security.
The software will send the related data to the system which will respectively save the data. This will work only for document or image MIME types…
I guess this will result in bloated file sizes and double saving; but the file will be portable when you send it to others as the data will be clipped off; and this should be user-configurable whether he wishes the data to work as such.
If somehow properly implemented; his sessions may become like this:
*Open the software; press “New” where he will also do the only save
*Do whatever work he wants to; as long as he wants to; and not be bothered about a power failure or a system crash
*Close the software when he’s done.
[[He will not get a prompt asking whether he would like to save it or no]]
*When he would like to continue doing his work he would open the file and the data is as it was earlier
*Undo will involve both undo’s he did in that session; and undo’s of previous sessions
[[maybe GZip all the previous sessions…? low processor intensive operations]]
*when he’s done working to a good extent; he will press “Finalise Document” where maybe he’ll export it to PDF or such
[[here the previous undo sessions will be clipped off]]
This way the he will just focus on his work only and thus greatly increase productivity; crash recovery; and great reversibility of data. Not just text related; but graphics related as well; maybe decided by the MIME definitions (?) for which this should be supported
Those who dont wish for it; can deactivate it or something
This will need BeAPI and a developed BFS’ support so… will this idea work?
EDIT: Okay; this seems similiar or maybe same as versioning file system