This dialog box is used to configure autosaving and backing up of files. Autosaving is the ability for CRiSP to save files automatically after a period of idle time, or a number of keystrokes. Backups are performed when the file is saved (not as a result of an autosave). The autosave & backup dialog box consists of three parts, selected from a tab setting.

Sanity

File sanity is used by CRiSP to detect if someone else has modified or tampered with a file whilst you are editing it. If a file is modified whilst you are editing it with CRiSP then you will sometimes see strange results (such as losing synchronization with where lines start and end, or missing chunks of the file). This is because CRiSP does not maintain a private copy of a file being edited, but refers back to the original file on disk.

Locking

The locking mechanism is designed to be used in an environment where you may lose edits to a file, because another user or application has written to the file whilst editing. CRiSP provides numerous safety checks to ensure you do not edit or overwrite someone elses work, but these mechanisms tend to kick in after you have made any modifications to a file, rather than before you start an editing session.

Backup

These options control the creation of backup files when you save a modified file to disk. You can control where backups are stored, how many old backups to keep and options for controlling the style of the backup file name.

Autosave

These options are used to control the autosaving of files. Autosaving is used for automatically saving files you are editing on, e.g. if you walk away from your terminal and forget to save, or for automatically saving modified files after a number of keystrokes.

CRiSP provides an autosave and autowrite option. When an autosave is performed, CRiSP will write a temporary copy of any modified buffers to a temporary file (usually located in the backup directory). Autowrite means that the file will be automatically saved for you, as if you had performed a <Alt-W>command, i.e. the original file on disk will be saved.