GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 662877
"Create a backup copy of files before saving" should be off by Default
Last modified: 2014-08-13 15:21:37 UTC
By default Gedit is creating a ~ file while saving a file. This option should by default be off rather than on, since this creates a clutter of unnecessary backup files. This is not expected of a text-editor software.
I agree with the pertinence of this bug report. Other related problems are of a confidentiality- and security-breaches nature. Just for the popularity of such a discussion to be assessed: http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/17749/
http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=707224
A backup is really useful, if you save the file by mistake, and then close the file. Ideally, everyone should regularly make backups, but in practice it isn't the case. However, if the file is taken into account by a version control system (git, SVN, etc), the backup is indeed completely useless.
Backups are fine, but without telling the user, that they are there, as hidden files?
There is a setting in the preferences dialog. Someone knowing gedit can easily disable the feature. Someone without a good knowledge of what he or she is doing generally prefer a backup, just in case. So I think this bug can be closed.
I actually would prefer to change the default. creating foo~ files is not very useful in 2014
Created attachment 283290 [details] [review] Set default value of create-backup-copy setting to false And update the description, it is no longer possible to change the backup file extension.
Review of attachment 283290 [details] [review]: Looks good to me.
Pushed: https://git.gnome.org/browse/gedit/commit/?id=eeb81e5b1bab893ea48cd3314e5ae7594a99ba5c Sorry for having first closed this bug as wontfix, I thought backups were created by default for good reasons.