Sav-O-Matic is a configurable, automatic, file saving program.
In order to use it, simply drag the Sav-O-Matic file into the System folder and restart your Macintosh. Once the computer has restarted, open the Control Panel Desk Accessory, and click on the Sav-O-Matic icon. From here, you can turn Sav-O-Matic off and on, set how often you want files to be saved, and set the applications you want Sav-O-Matic to work with.
To turn Sav-O-Matic off or on, simply click the appropriate radio button in the upper left hand corner of the dialog. Like all other changes you make to Sav-O-Matic, the on/off switch takes effect as soon as you close the Control Panel. There is never any need to restart the computer.
To set the amount of time between automatic saves, simply click on the appropriate (2,5,10,15,20,30) minute number.
To select the applications for which Sav-O-Matic will be active, click on the Add... button and select the applications you want. Applications for which Sav-O-Matic is active will appear in a list on the right side of the Control Panel. Applications may be deleted from the list by selecting them and pressing the Remove button. Any changes you make to the application list take effect as soon as the control panel is closed.
The Ignore Untitled Documents button is a new feature with Sav-O-Matic 1.5. When it is selected, Sav-O-Matic won't save any documents that have the word "Untitled" in their name. This can be handy if you tend to use temporary documents for special purposes (eg messing around), or don't like having Sav-O-Matic break in and insist that you give your document a name after only a few minutes of typing. However, if this option is selected: 1) Your "Untitled" documents will be susceptible to loss through power outages, and 2) Your Magnum Opus "Untitled French Nobility of the 14th Century" will never be auto-saved.
The Test Mode button in the Sav-O-Matic dialog makes it easy to check whether your favorite applications respond to Sav-O-Matic. After adding the application to the list, simply click on the "Test Mode" button. This has the effect of decreasing the time between automatic saves from minutes to seconds; eg if the 5 minute button is selected, turning on the test mode will cause saves to occur every 5 seconds. The convenience offered by this feature can exact a price however. If an application (eg Photoshop) takes too long to save a document, and does not check for changes between saves, then a continuous, and annoying, series of saves can occur. Should this happen, either hold the mouse down over the menu bar until you can get the control panel up and turn off Test Mode, or type command Q (quit). The state of Test Mode is always set to off when the Macintosh is restarted.
How Sav-O-Matic works:
Sav-O-Matic works by installing a time manager task which periodically posts a command S keydown event. Since the command S key combination is normally the equivalent used for the Save menu item, most applications treat the event as a save command. Clean, neat, transparent, and sometimes not enough. A few applications, notably MacPaint, read the keyboard directly, and thus are not fooled by this ruse. There is no workaround for this sort of behavior. Other applications simply don't use the command S combination, or use it for something else. A few minutes work with ResEdit can solve this sort of problem.
Version History and Compatibility:
1.0 Feb 1991
1.5 Apr 1991 added "Don't save untitled documents" feature.
1.51 Apr 1991 Fixed minor bug in above feature.
Sav-O-Matic is known to work on the Mac Plus,SE/30, and IIci. It probably works on everything but the original Mac.
Sav-O-Matic has been tested, and found to be compatible with, among many others: Adobe Photoshop, Aldus FreeHand, Canvas, CricketGraph, Excel, MacDraw, MacWrite, MS-Word, MS-Works, PageMaker, TeachText, ThinkC, Wingz, and WriteNow. For various reasons, Edit, MacPaint, and UltraPaint do not respond to it.
Plea for support of Shareware:
Sav-O-Matic is not a free program. If, after a reasonable period of time, you find that Sav-O-Matic is still in your System Folder, Please send $20.00 to:
Bruce Partridge
1209 S. 25th St.
Lincoln, NE 68502 USA
I can also be found on Genie and Compuserve.
If Sav-O-Matic ever saves you from any of the various catastrophes to which computers are prone, please remember the guy who remembered to save your work.
If you upload Sav-O-Matic to any BBS, or give it to friends, please make sure that this documentation goes along with it.
Note to Folks in other lands: Any of you people in Australia who like Sav-O-Matic, and would like to pay for it, please send me a frozen kangaroo tail, vegomite, or some similar item indicative of your place of habitation. For other countries, likewise, a pretty postcard would be just fine.
Tech Note to folks in other lands: if your country doesn't use command S as the save command, you can alter Sav-O-Matic so that it works by using ResEdit. Open the Sav-O-Matic Init resource, and look for 207C 0000 0003 203C 0000 3773 A12F. The A12F is the PostEvent call, and the 3773 is the character code and key code for the letter s. Just change the 3773 to the appropriate codes.
Special thanks:
These go to my lovely wife Rebecca, for, among other things, coming up with a truly tacky name for this project.
