[ardour-dev] Ardour session backup files

[Mark Knecht]

Hi,
   I know new feature requests are not really being considered prior
to 1.0 but after reading a few posts it seems to me that I should at
least suggest. Thanks for whatever level of consideration you can give
it at this late date.

   Over the last few years stability of the Ardour session file has
been an off and on issue. It's certainly gotten better but when there
is a problem it has appeared that there was no solution other then to
rebuild the session file as it seemed that often the one backup would
have problems also.

   In the more recent versions of Pro Tools DigiDesign has created a
new directory called 'Session File Backups'. This directory resides
parallel to the Audio directory inside of the main session directory.
The directory includes a copy of the original session file that is
copied every time I open a PT session. For an orchestral piece I'm
working on to demo LinuxSampler I run from

Mars.bak.00.pts

through...

Mars.bak.72.pts.

Since each session file is less than 500K (large in this case due to
excessive MIDI info. It's a 24 tracks and all MIDI) I am using about
40MB in this directory but that's small compared to audio and is very
easy to clean up by hand if I decide I don't need all of the backups.

   I think it would be a very wise addition for Ardour to include
something like this, done automatically. It would be best to kick
things off successfully so that post 1.0 there aren't folks losing
sessions should a problem crop up with their hard work.

   Thanks for any consideration you give to the idea whether you
implement it or not.

Cheers,
Mark