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ttscoff / nv

MultiMarkdown version of Notational Velocity with Markdown editing features and preview
http://brettterpstra.com/projects/nvalt
BSD 3-Clause "New" or "Revised" License
1.77k stars 197 forks source link

The 'Notes & Settings' file? #258

Open keno47 opened 10 years ago

keno47 commented 10 years ago

I've had a good search around for existing threads or help on this but can't seem to find anything which covers it in detail.

What is stored in the 'Notes & Settings' file? Can you restore from it?

If a 'Notes & Settings' is also named 'conflicted copy' can I restore from that too?

I've lost a text file I could really do with getting back.

Any pointers great fully appreciated. Thanks.

Stephen

juranta commented 10 years ago

Yes, there are notes "inside" that file. You can change nvALT to use that file by switching from Preferences "Notes" => "Read notes from folder". But be sure to backup (copy) everything in that foder to a safe place before you try anything! That name "conflicted copy" sounds like a conflict copy from Dropbox perhaps. Once you've backed up everything, maybe you can try to rename that file to "Notes & Settings" and point nvALT to that.

And for future, it's perhaps a good idea to choose "Storage" => "Plain text files", so the notes will get written as plain text files as well, so there's more change you'll find the lost notes somewhere. :)

keno47 commented 10 years ago

Thanks for replying Juranta.

When I create a new folder and place a "notes and setting" file in the folder and pout nvALT there nothing happens.

I reopen up nvALT there are no text files.

When I lost the file my preferences where set to 'Storage" => "Plain text files".

All ideas gratefully received…

juranta commented 10 years ago

Did you happen to have your Notes in a Dropbox folder in "Plain text files" format? If so, maybe you can go to Dropbox web site and see if your note is among "deleted files". Besides that, maybe Time Machine.

In any case, I have my notes stored as "Plain text files", that is, there's both "Notes & Settings" and the text files.

I did exactly this:

  1. Turned off nvALT
  2. Copied only "Notes & Settings" to another directory.
  3. Turned on nvALT
  4. Went to Preferences => Notes => "Read notes from folder" and chose the new location.
  5. At this point nvALT said that there are no longer notes on disk, do you want to restore them? I said yes, and it extracted the notes inside that "Notes & Settings".
keno47 commented 10 years ago

Thanks for the detailed write up Juranta. I get to point 5 and nothing happens – I get no restore message.

It odd by my '"Notes & Settings" file is 43k before I create a new directory folder, but after nothing happens and I quit nvALT and the file reduced to 16k.

Not sure if this means anything.

koro-xx commented 8 years ago

I have a similar question. I use the "Plain text files" formats. My question is why does nvALT keep a Notes & Settings file. I usually sync with dropbox among multiple machines and I often get a "Conflicted copy" version of the Notes & Settings file. I am unsure whether I'm losing data when this happens or not, I haven't been able to pinpoint any specific data loss, but I'm somewhat concerned. To avoid problems I have nvALT set to quit on close and I try to never leave it open when I leave a computer, but still I get this issue from time to time (maybe because I forget it open, maybe not).

My real concern is: am I losing data or not, and if I am, is there something I can do about it?

ttscoff commented 8 years ago

The Notes & Settings file is the database, which is maintained even if you set to plain text storage (in addition to individual files). It's how the search remains fast.

Dropbox conflicts are indeed a problem, but I no longer experience them myself. As long as the text files aren't lost, nvALT will self-correct to compensate for conflicted files. Honestly, the whole system needs rewriting for full Dropbox stability, but...

-Brett

On 30 Nov 2015, at 11:32, koro-xx wrote:

I have a similar question. I use the "Plain text files" formats. My question is why does nvALT keep a Notes & Settings file. I usually sync with dropbox among multiple machines and I often get a "Conflicted copy" version of the Notes & Settings file. I am unsure whether I'm losing data when this happens or not, I haven't been able to pinpoint any specific data loss, but I'm somewhat concerned. To avoid problems I have nvALT set to quit on close and I try to never leave it open when I leave a computer, but still I get this issue from time to time (maybe because I forget it open, maybe not).

My real concern is: am I losing data or not, and if I am, is there something I can do about it?

Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub: https://github.com/ttscoff/nv/issues/258#issuecomment-160698847

elasticthreads commented 8 years ago

@koro-xx Definitely do your best to keep nvALT open on one machine at a time. The Dropbox issues are one of the main reason Brett and I are writing a ground up new app, the database model that nvALT uses is not really meant for Dropbox.

As Brett mentioned that Notes & Settings file, even if you set nvalt to store your notes as separate files, is actually the definitive copy of notes that nvALT uses. There's data there that can't be stored in a plain text file (like if you bold a line of text).

T'he new app is coming along. We will let folks know as soon as there's a beta to test.

koro-xx commented 8 years ago

I was unaware of the plans for a new app. Sounds great, thanks for the update!