whartung
4 days ago
I appreciate the drive for a peaceful place to work, not to mention the price and weight of a MacBook.
But I want to point out a key feature of both raw macOS TextEdit and Pages.
Simply, it’s the Macs document model of “never” having to save an file and backed by a versioned file model.
Barring some disaster, you just type. If you close the computer, it picks back up where you left off (because of the battery backup keeping the memory intact). If you reboot the computer (and you have it restore your open apps), it comes right back where you left off. Finally, if you simply quit the program, it just quits and reopens, again, where you left off. No dialog boxes. No “Are you sure?”. None of that.
The key point to all this is you don’t have to manage the backing file. Your next Great American Novel can have the working name of “Untitled-1”.
At least for me, this is a great QoL feature. One less thing I have to deal with.
And it’s always there, it’s pervasive, and it’s backed up (I assume) to Time Machine (another mostly incredible set it and forget it system). I admit the relationship between this system and Time Machine is fuzzy to me because these files are system managed and not really visible outside of the application. I don’t know how to recover “Untitled-23” from Time Machine. But since it’s versioned, there’s less need for that.
Google Docs kind of has to work like this, and I don’t know how many other Mac apps adopt and leverage this subsystem. But, notably, Office, et al, don’t.
And, if I can just Shut. Up., it’s, to quote Forrest Gump, “That’s good! One less thing”.
msephton
3 days ago
Any app built on top of Apple's Document-based App paradigm gets the versioned file thing for free.
System Preferences > Desktop & Dock > Windows > Close windows when quitting an application = OFF means any Document-based App also gets the resumable persistent storage for free.
I agree two of the greatest features in macOS. "Don't make me think!"