How uneasy the IDE can be (is ?)

General
1

I’ve made a major mistake yesterday: I format a 2TB (nearly full of data: 9 months of internet and Xojo work, etc.).

Fortunately, for the xojo project I was polishing with love every day or couple of days, I had a… surprising backup:

some days ago, in a Conversation opened by a fellow Chineese developer (a friend), I gave this answer…
To get the whole Xojo code for a given project, print it to pdf (no entry selected in the Navigator).

Just like any answer I do here, I check before. And this time I do not trashed (forgot ? ESP ?) it.

Now, back to the subject name:

I’ve made a quick search in my often used hard disks, and found two “backup” projects: one from December 20, 2014 and another from last July. So, I loaded the PDF using Acrobat Reader in the external monitor, loaded the latest project (with its external folders [1]) and placed the project window full screnn in the internal monitor.

The pdf shows the code following its own schema (I do not really care: I will follow it), but I had to make an intensive use of the Mouse since the keyboard navigation in the OS X IDE is far less than satisfactory. I do not talk in details on the fact that you have to press Return once you select a MenuHandler (with the ComboList), etc.

Nearly each time I have to add code (MenuEvent, WIndowEvent), I had to click Here, There, and Everywhere. Really boring (I assume my part of that, but the IDE does not really help me [2])

I only had around 30 minutes earlier to start the project upgrade from the PDF, but it was not a pleasure.

Nota: on many points, the WIndows IDE is better in doing this (less clicks in the MenuEditor to add code).

YES: I know, Xojo Engineers have more useful work on their plate to do right now. BUT: this will always be the case (it was in the past, and there is no reason why this will not be the same in the future).

ALSO: I know, my use of Xojo is (appears to be) far different from you folks, but facts are facts, and companies nowadays works like that. I have tons to say about OS X or Windows (8.1, I do not had time to install version 10).

FWIW.

  • [1] It was the version I moved (and not trashed) when I found troubles with the Post-Build Screen, resolved since.
  • [2] I spend some times with this project to refine the user experience to get it as user friendly as possible, as I can do (and to not follow the IDE [bad] example).
2

Are you using Git or Subversion? Don’t you have some sort of automatic backups running?

3

Never, ever host your source code without offsite backup. As a developer it’s by far your most important asset. We don’t host any source code on an internal server though we obviously have working projects on local machines. We have a subversions server on the cloud.

I’d also make sure you have backups of your subversion or git repository as well because you are relying on some unknown entity to make proper backups.

4

And Bob:

Thank you for your answers.

No, it was standard xojo project (binary). The first troubles does not comes from Xojo, but from me: I formattet both partitions of twhere these projects were (thinking it was a different hard disk) :frowning:

My fault.

That said, at around 21 yesterday, the project was looking like what the pdf file is. Did I loose something (beside time) ? I do not know. Of course, some of the files in the hard disk wil never be taken back (around 700GB of videos).

5

Did you format the disk securely? If not, chances are not bad you could retrieve at least a few of these files.

6

Ulrich: Oh, yes, I do it like it have to be done. Low format: nothing exists after that.

This is the case where nothing can be done: you do the thing properly, in purpose, like it have to be done, but not to the right hard disk (externa). Conscienciously: I knew what I was doing. I just forgot to remove that hard disk and place the one I wanted to do that .

In the whole 2TB of data, some things will be easy to get back (from internet) even with bad memory (how can I recall what was inside this hard disk ?), some will not be (TV Shows, nearly 1TB, even with re-aired programs, some will not be) *.

  • I just recall having used the movie Woodstock (the movie from the 1969 concert), nearly 14GB: I store a copy in a BluRay disc to know how this works ! Niiiice.
7

You could use some recovery software to get the data back, I remember I had a similar issue and I used get data back app and I had all the data since the hdd was bought , data never delets properly and always there is a way to recover it, I’m now familiar with Mac because I never had any problems on Mac but for sure there are apps that do that as well.

Hope it helps.

Good luck on getting those back.

8

Aurelian:

if you delete a file (or a volume), you can use a recovery software to get back the data (because, as you said, they are not really deleted).

When you format a hard disk (low level with 1 to n passes), there is nothing to get back from that hard disk. The process erase absolutely all the hard disk. You can even get some blocks back to life using this operation. This is exactly why I’ve done that (of course I do not wanted to do that on THAT disk…).

Thank you for your good will.

BTW: deleting a file really let the data on the disk until the free disk space start to be very low. When no more space is available since the last block used to save the last file, the OS start to write from the beginning of the hard disk. In clear: if you never save data to fills the hard disk completely, you can be able to get the files back; after that point you really start to loose files (because the OS write on it).

9

Well you might want to give it a try, after quick search i found some that say that even after low level format they can recover, worst part you just loose some time , http://www.remosoftware.com/recover-files-after-low-level-format

Take care

10

Aurelian:

this is totaly new to me. I never saw this kind of information before. I will try it.

Fortunately (?), I do not used the hard disk since I low format it.

11

I read Emile’s post and while the disk catastrophe is bad, it’s not his main thesis - it’s the fact that so much of the IDE demands mouse clicks to achieve results.

Granted, if he’d had a recent backup he wouldn’t have needed to access the IDE’s interface and identify the issues, but that’s not the point.

There is an old series of Feedback entries about issues with the keyboard focus and transversal of the IDE fields: <https://xojo.com/issue/36874>. Reported as fixed, but we all still see many of these problems in the latest versions.

12

Yes Tim.

On OS X only (in many cases, in the cases I checked on Windows 8.1).

On many cases, these does not appears on WIndows 8.1.

And a real annoying “bug” is the need to press Return to validate a Control name (not always, not on all Controls: no I do not build a list).

Another one is the lack of REAL keyboard shortcut support.

The Memo Software recovery application: it tooks it 10 hours to recover… the actual invisible files that all hard disks have.
10 hours: I take the partition that had mostly 2MB files on it, not the other one who have mostly small files (5MB to 100MB).

On the other way, I checked it on a 2MB Memory stick: it allows to recover the just deleted files easilly.

13

On what kind of platform ?

And if it was on windows, did you do a quick format. ? (If it’s on windows and you used quick format, you will have a chance to recover some files, depends how much you have added to the storage after the format.

I don’t have a Mac, but according to this link, it seems it’s also possible to recover files on Mac, if you have done a quick format.
See link: How to Undo Quick Format in Windows 7/10