Is 'move source files while saving' a dangerous feature?

[reapercurious]

hi,

i know it's useful for some reasons, but the 'move source files' option in the save menu is bad.

scenario: user uses one media item from their fixed 'samples folder' or an mp3 file from an album in your itunes, or any other media item that is part of a set of files somewhere in your file system. using this feature will de-intact such collections.

i realize there will be someone who will heartfully disagree, and that is fine, but I have to say this is one feature that does not need to be in Reaper, because it is easy to destructively lose data from the organization of the musician's music and or sample library. it is too easy to be tempted to use this feature without being fully aware of every single little file that is in the project.

[ivansc]

There again if you are referring to the "move project files into" option, it is pretty difficult to see how moving ALL files in a project to ONE location which is clearly specified offers any potential for lost files.

And of course it IS just an option. Nobody ever held a gun to my head and forced me to use it.
P.S. There is no such word as "de-intact". Maybe you meant "separate files from"?

[DarkStar]

Isn't that why the "Copy rather than move... " check-box was added?

[reapercurious]

all due respect folks, but what if there was a checkbox that literally said, "check this box to delete your hard drive"? some poor fool would definitely misuse that feature.

what i just attempted was a comparison.

if you save projects here and there, and let's just say you were doing a remix and you had a few things on your mind, such as space conservation on your hard drives, portability, organizing, whatever. let's say saving space was on your mind one random day, and you forgot that the project had a common file in it, like your only copy of an mp3 album by some other artist for a remix, and two years later and a new hard drive, new computer whatever, and you burned that mix onto a DVD for some dumb reason, and well you just forgot where those files are.

the feature is optional of course, and thats great, but the feature isn't good because it can mess up your file system, period, end of paragraph. the feature is potentially destructive to your file system. everything else reaper does is non destructive and safer in comparison.

[PitchSlap]

This has come in handy on rare occasions, so I wouldn't want to see it gone.

On the other hand I understand where you're coming from. I've also accidentally moved some samples from my sample library into a project directory. Which ones I'll never know, but I can guarantee that was the last project they were ever used in.



P.S. Make sure never to run out of hard drive space while doing this. Reaper just loves creating 0 byte files. Bye, bye data....

[ivansc]

Baby + Bathwater.

Just how far along the Nanny State path do we have to go?

[ivansc]

Originally Posted by PitchSlap

I understand where you're coming from. I've also accidentally moved some samples from my sample library into a project directory. Which ones I'll never know, but I can guarantee that was the last project they were ever used in.

Not sure I understand why you lost stuff like this.
If you had all items being moved into a project folder, gotta be easy - just open that folder copy the stuff you didnt want moved and paste it back where it belongs????

Maybe I am missing something obvious here...

[Ollie]

The problem comes up when you don't have "Copy imported media to project media directory" checked in Preferences->Media (so REAPER leaves that media in its original directory, good for working with clip libraries etc.) and then decide to move all project media rather than copying it. Darkstar is correct, that's why there is also a "Copy rather than move source media if not in the old project media path" checkbox in the dialog, so you don't have to mess with Preferences settings.

Unfortunately certain settings/options will always be less than optimal for someone's workflow ideas/impulses and need some consideration, and many will find out 'what settings/checkboxes do what' only after the unexpected has happened. That's "learning by doing" (it wrong), it often hurts a little but that's also why it works so well.

Moving files does not "destroy your filesystem" tho, it just moves files and you can move them back. It becomes destructive when you go one step further and decide to delete unused data, uncheck "move files to trash" and don't care much for backups. That's why thinking up a good (simple and strict) scheme for organizing projects and media is quite important.

[reapercurious]

Originally Posted by Ollie

The problem comes up when you don't have "Copy imported media to project media directory" checked in Preferences->Media (so REAPER leaves that media in its original directory, good for working with clip libraries etc.) and then decide to move all project media rather than copying it. Darkstar is correct, that's why there is also a "Copy rather than move source media if not in the old project media path" checkbox in the dialog, so you don't have to mess with Preferences settings.

Unfortunately certain settings/options will always be less than optimal for someone's workflow ideas/impulses and need some consideration, and many will find out 'what settings/checkboxes do what' only after the unexpected has happened. That's "learning by doing" (it wrong), it often hurts a little but that's also why it works so well.

Moving files does not "destroy your filesystem" tho, it just moves files and you can move them back. It becomes destructive when you go one step further and decide to delete unused data, uncheck "move files to trash" and don't care much for backups. That's why thinking up a good (simple and strict) scheme for organizing projects and media is quite important.

ok what if you save a project on an USB stick, and accidentally move one file off your computer? how is that file supposed to make its way back to its original place 100% of the time for every single user out there? maybe you are a "one computer" person but some people are in school, travelling, touring, homeless, 5 different mansions, truck drivers, you name it. it is just not good when a program that isn't your OS is moving files, which in the case of moving from one hard drive to another, is a deletion.

with data, redundancy is ok, but "move" file can indeed delete data from one drive when it is done. sometimes it could be unintentional and you might not notice until years later. data is very hard to consolidate, and you dont want a program to be moving things around without an "are you sure?" protection dialog box or something warning you that you can lose data if you move the file off the drive to another drive.

we like to use the term "non destructive" with DAWs. that's agreed upon i hope. if there is a 25% chance you could end up unthinkingly moving a file off one partition or device to another, then that is still a chance for accidental undesired and even potentially destructive to a users perception of their data structure.

[ivansc]

(cue Monty Python)

[reapercurious]

I ought to have put the 'is' in the thread title at the front of the sentence, but this is no laughing matter. or is it?

[clepsydrae]

Originally Posted by reapercurious

if there is a 25% chance you could end up unthinkingly moving a file off one partition or device to another, then that is still a chance for accidental undesired and even potentially destructive to a users perception of their data structure.

While i firmly agree that this feature needs to remain in Reaper right where it is (i use it all the time when i start a project in the default directory and forget to save, and want to consolidate to a new place and leave nothing behind), and while i would guess that the devs probably aren't looking for excuses to pile more prefs on the issue, i have also made the mistake you describe and it's frustrating, especially when you don't notice until weeks or months later and wonder where your sample (or reverb impulse, or clip from an archived project that you borrowed for something, or whatever) went, and thus I would support a couple extra prefs along the lines of:

"warn when saving project will move files except when they are leaving from underneath the following comma-separated list of parent directories" -- in that list you can enter parent directories of your audio project directories, and everything else is assumed to be a "sample directory" or similar. Then when you use that option you'll get a dialog warning, perhaps even allowing you to select which files are copied, which are moved, and which are untouched.

You could have a second option, too (applied before the first when saving):
"when saving project will move files, copy them instead of moving if they are not underneath the following comma-separated list of parent directories"

The negating might be a bit for the average user to get their head around, but i think it makes sense to mask it that way, as most of us have a few locations for 'active projects' and the rest of our hierarchy is relatively constant, no?

I would use those options.

[karbomusic]

"warn when saving project will move files except when they are leaving from underneath the following comma-separated list of parent directories" -- in that list you can enter parent directories of your audio project directories, and everything else is assumed to be a "sample directory" or similar. Then when you use that option you'll get a dialog warning, perhaps even allowing you to select which files are copied, which are moved, and which are untouched.

Should probably be semicolons like the VST scan locations. Secondly, I think it just simply needs to be excluded folders and that's it. I can't see the entire multi-decisional dialog being worth the additional confusion it would create - We're already having users confused by the simple two check boxes we have now.

[beingmf]

All valid points. Interesting.
First of all, I would only make the tick box visible in the "save as ..." dialog of an "untitled" project.

Then: how about ONLY moving the audio files without further warning when they are in the temp folder of said untitled, virgin project? For files outside of this folder, how about a warning popup?

[clepsydrae]

Originally Posted by karbomusic

Should probably be semicolons like the VST scan locations.

Ah, right. :-) And i forget that some crazy people use commas in directory names, too. :-) From ancient habit I still name everything all lower case with no spaces, and shudder when i see otherwise. I acknowledge that it's 2015. :-)

Secondly, I think it just simply needs to be excluded folders and that's it.

I hear that. I just think of the 47 folders i would have to list as "don't move from here", which are frequently being created, moved around, renamed, etc, and it sounds like a lot more of a pain than if i could just list the few directories i have my current projects in, which rarely change. Plus it seems wise to err on the side of "are you sure you want to move this file?" rather than "hey, the user didn't list the directory explicitly, so i'll go for it."

Maybe it could be worded better, with an additional pref:

[x] confirm when moving files on project save

[x] 'Move files on project save' will move files without confirmation from locations underneath these directories: [.....]

[x] 'Move files on project save' should only apply to files underneath those directories; all other files should be copied instead (without confirmation)

...and the confirm dialog can just say "Some files will be moved... are you sure?" rather than a chooser/selector, though i'd be happy to see the chooser/selector, personally. Or at least a text field report of what's being moved from where to where so i don't have to comb through 200 tracks to find the mystery file.

[clepsydrae]

Originally Posted by beingmf

All valid points. Interesting.
First of all, I would only make the tick box visible in the "save as ..." dialog of an "untitled" project.

Then: how about ONLY moving the audio files without further warning when they are in the temp folder of said untitled, virgin project? For files outside of this folder, how about a warning popup?

Sometimes i'll be working on an old project and i'll record some new stuff on a couple new tracks and decide it should be a separate project. It's really handy to delete everything but the new stuff and save-as with the "move" option to make a new, clean project, and to pull all the old stuff from the parent project. In other words, I don't want the option to go away.

And a simple warning popup (if that's what you meant) doesn't seem adequate either... lots of times you know that stuff is going to be moved and it's your intention (so you would click through the dialog), but it also moves other stuff you didn't intend. I think the crux is how to tell Reaper what you want to protect and what you don't, and how to handle the grey areas; hence the prefs i proposed.

[karbomusic]

I think the crux is how to tell Reaper what you want to protect and what you don't, and how to handle the grey areas; hence the prefs i proposed.

That's sort of what I was inferring, it creates a decision tree with more branches the more we think about it. One could browse to 'sample folders' to exclude via GUI to add them to the list, then after that if a save as includes move, warn them with a OK/Cancel with an hint under that to see the 'Sample Directory Exclusion List' in prefs and that same dialog has a "Don't show me again check box".

I make such a case because most users who really get bit by this are either new or more simple minded in their approach to recording; if that is the case I don't think adding much more increases their chances.

[clepsydrae]

Originally Posted by karbomusic

I make such a case because most users who really get bit by this are either new or more simple minded in their approach to recording; if that is the case I don't think adding much more increases their chances.

Conversely, the prefs i described would allow more experienced users to throw audio files into their projects without having to maintain a mental list of the external audio source files in play, and they would then be able to use the handy "move on save" feature for project management without messing up their libraries, and without having to comb through all their items and bounce the external stuff, which seems like a good win.

The prefs i described could also default to off, so the behavior wouldn't change at all, no warnings, etc, unless you're an advanced user and want the warnings.

[karbomusic]

Originally Posted by clepsydrae

Conversely, the prefs i described would allow more experienced users to throw audio files into their projects without having to maintain a mental list of the external audio source files in play, and they would then be able to use the handy "move on save" feature for project management without messing up their libraries, and without having to comb through all their items and bounce the external stuff, which seems like a good win.

The prefs i described could also default to off, so the behavior wouldn't change at all, no warnings, etc, unless you're an advanced user and want the warnings.

Np, I thought this and the other thread on the subject were both coming from a non-advanced perspective. No worries.

[reapercurious]

a DAW by nature is supposed to be non destructive, hence the great undo function.

the problem with the 'move source files' feature is that reaper is given permission to alter the file structure in invisible ways that can corrupt your mental inventory of where your samples and impulse files are. that is a feature that definitely needs a warning message:

WARNING: you are about to permanently move n files from their original locations, some of them may be common files that other projects may be dependent on. Are you sure you want to do that?

Yes No Cancel

[karbomusic]

the problem with the 'move source files' feature is that reaper is given permission to alter the file structure in invisible ways that can corrupt your mental inventory of where your samples and impulse files are.

Man are you over selling it. The dialog box is fine but the idea that is destructive because it 'messed with your mental inventory' is I'm sorry, incorrect, false and far too dramatic. No one is going to take you seriously if you keep over playing it like that.

[serr]

I find it convenient for that move when you want to purge outtakes and extraneous files but keep them in a folder for a minute before hitting that big empty trash button.

Moves your current files into a new folder and leaves the unused files in the old one in one move. Convenient.

As for using bits of audio from other projects and/or bits of samples from a sample library, good practice is to glue these into new files.

But there's also a "copy instead of move" if the files are not in the parent directory" or some such wording sub-option for that very scenario.

Pretty slick file menu options IMHO.

The only way you're going to get in trouble with Reaper is if you treat your file system like a mystery hole and have no awareness of where you save stuff nor any awareness of how to find it and manage it with the Finder/Explorer.

[reapercurious]

Originally Posted by karbomusic

Man are you over selling it. The dialog box is fine but the idea that is destructive because it 'messed with your mental inventory' is I'm sorry, incorrect, false and far too dramatic. No one is going to take you seriously if you keep over playing it like that.

right on,

i am not selling anything, i am only trying to be clear about my reason why it is a bad feature. when you move files, a deletion is taking place, and if you're using a file in your project that is common with other projects, and use this feature to move things to a portable hard drive, or if you own several hard drives, then there is a strong likelihood that you're going to end up with missing files down the road, and the chances are sharply increased by this function. Reaper should be absolutely non destructive. There are just thousands and thousands of little files floating around, and if a user wants to save hard drive space, they can manually delete their own files themselves, reaper doesn't need to do that. maybe an extension or something.

moving a file might not be a problem this year, but it could end up being a problem 5 years down the road and there's no way to know you might be making that kind of mistake now, only down the road when it's most likely too late.

[ivansc]

A gentle reminder: That is why there is a copy files option AND a move files option.

But if it will make you feel any better, yes - I can see your point that in your case it makes you nervous, so for you it is a bad idea.

Me? I am happy to make sure I know where my stuff is going by using the existing choices.

If anything, a decent option might be "default:create a project directory folder and copy all project files to it on save/close."

[reapercurious]

There is a warning message when you clear track automation even though there is the possibility to undo. Saving while moving source files doesn't seem to offer an undo at least to my knowledge, and if a move takes place between partitions, the original is deleted. So in theory, a file may be deleted off your partition and you don't get an undo or even a warning message, but something as simple as track automation with undo gives a warning.

Maybe 'bad' is a harsh word, but well, the move function is actually a delete and a copy, and there is the potential to lose your data from a partition unintentionally if you aren't careful or an expert. I realize you are a power user, but Reaper caters to all levels of user, not only the super smart.

EDIT:

Would a moderator please rename this thread to the following:
Is 'move source files while saving' a dangerous feature?