APPLICATION DESIGN

Autosaving Notes documents
Autosave is a Notes Client feature by which Notes documents are automatically saved to a local database at regularly scheduled times determined by the user. If Notes crashes, or if the user loses power, the user can recover the work that was done prior to the crash or power loss.

If the user enables the AutoSave feature, the most current version of the document is saved to an Autosave database (...\data\autosave.nsf). The Autosave database is created automatically when the Notes client is first installed. The user then recovers the documents from this database.

Note Users can override the default location for autosave.nsf by setting the Notes.ini variable auto_save_db to the file location of their choice.

Note that the original Notes document is still stored in its database or Notes application; the version with the newest changes that has not yet been saved is the one copied to the Autosave database.

Enabling AutoSave in forms

In order for a document to be autosaved, the form from which the document is created must be enabled for Autosave.


Note Application developers should be sure to test the forms in their applications with Autosave to ensure that Autosave works properly with the application.

Enabling AutoSave in the Notes client

You enable AutoSave in the Notes Client User Preferences.

Note The form on which your document is based must be enabled for AutoSave by the application developer. If you enable Autosave in the Client, the client status bar will indicate when a document is being autosaved. If Autosave is not enabled for a particular form, speak with the application developer for that application about enabling Autosave.

1. Click File - Preferences - User Preferences.

2. On the Basics pane, under Startup Options, enable "AutoSave Every 15 Minutes."


3. (Optional) Increase or decrease the autosave interval.

4. Click OK.

Recovering documents saved with the AutoSave feature

Users can recover autosaved documents immediately upon startup, or at a time of their choosing.

At startup after a crash or power loss, and after the user authenticates, the user is prompted to recover unsaved work with the message "You have x unsaved document(s). Do you want to recover these documents now?"

If the user presses Yes, the Recover Unsaved Documents dialog box appears that lists the documents that can be recovered.

From the Recover Unsaved Documents dialog box, users have the following options:


Alternatively, the user can press No at the recovery prompt, and recover the autosaved documents later by selecting File - Autosave - Recover Autosaved Documents. The Recover Unsaved Documents dialog box appears and users can recover or delete documents as described above.

Once a document has been recovered from the AutoSave database, it is automatically removed from that database. This helps keep the Autosave database from becoming too big.

Other Autosave options

Note These options only work if the form has been enabled for AutoSave.

Occasionally users may be in the middle of editing a document and need to save the document immediately. They have the option of saving the current document to the AutoSave database by selecting File - AutoSave - Autosave Now.

Users have the option of keeping a copy of the working document in the Autosave database until they choose to delete it by selecting File - AutoSave - Save a copy to the Autosave database.