A Jesus icon.
Jesus saves.
What about Valhala tho? Kinda seems like superior religious imagery to me.
i want software to be easy to use. I don’t want to die in battle using my software
Admit it, we all die in some small way every time we use a computer, why not seek glory in it?
I’ve seen HDD icons as a replacement for the floppy.
HDD or a folder is open, floppy is save, surely?
In calibre, HDD icon is for “save to disk”, but I’m sure I’ve seen icon sets or other apps where HDD was used to save.
A cloud. Just to let them know they don’t own anything anymore.
Symbol of “the cross” with hover-over text in which Microsoft writes “pray I don’t amend it further.”
For that future timeline when the meaning of Save becomes “stop working, let Copilot perfect it, and close”
I thought it was going to be the cross because Jesus saves
Dawww, they’d claim that was the reason too. So, my idea goes behind the shed.
In Canada, a goalie’s hockey stick.
What? Not a Maple Syrup Spile?
Okay so hear me out.
The only solution here is Peter
Need to head out ? Oh ok lemme peter this document real quick.
C90 cassette.
There should be no save button. All software should auto-save continuously while you work. There should be a “duplicate”-type menu item or button that allow you to make a copy of the document into a new file.
Almost all cloud software already works like this.
No, please no. I hate auto save. I don’t mind choosing to turn it on, sometimes it’s warranted, but to have it forced on? Fuck that.
“Saving” is a legacy that was introduced because of limitations related to storage in the early days of computing and makes no inherent sense within the metaphors most software operate. Broken metaphors makes things difficult to learn.
When was the last time you scribbled onto a physical document and the changes “didn’t save”? Do you also hate “autosave” in the physical world?
I’m not sure if comparing the digital world to the physical world would bring the desired impact you expect it to. Storage is still at a premium and will be, no matter if it’s a txt file or some heavy duty 3d rendering or graphical processing.
Comparing to the physical world makes no sense because a computer is an enhancement that does things differently.
I want way to make trial and error scenarios and test ideas and scribble notes without being forced to keep the changes or retain a document. I also prefer to know where it is going.
I have some software that crashes and leaves me in this weird state where: auto save, recovery file, test sceberio. Which one was I using? Which will it choose to restore and how fucked am I now that the original is lost if I choose wrong?
Edit: I am going to say that on the other hand, in business it is wild that we give people a desktop computer when we should be giving them programs that they use. They should have metadata attached, be relative to their work, and have auto save. I am not always against auto save, it just needs to be in the appropriate places.
Comparing with the physical world makes sense when we have built these applications on physical world metaphors: “documents”, “folders”, “desktop”, etc. We use those words precisely because they convey meaning based on the similarities with their real-world counterparts. Broken metaphors are both more difficult to learn and tend to trigger incorrect assumptions leading to operator error (“Didn’t you save your document? What does that mean?”).
What is worse is that, like it or not, the world is increasingly moving towards cloud services. The “edit + save” paradigm is less suited to that environment, so there we almost exclusively see the “you edit the doc itself (no need to save)” paradigm. It is difficult to see the gain of insisting on keeping both these quite different paradigms around, when the “you edit the doc directly” is no problem to implement also offline.
Now, about the practicalities: I also get fundamentally annoyed when presented with the “document recovery” dialog that brings me out of my flow. However, I interprete the situation differently. Had the software used a “you edit the doc, no need to save” paradigm, there would never be a need for “recovery”. The edits I did are stored in the file I edited.
As for “I just want to scribble”. Why don’t you just scribble in a file called “Scribbles”? Why is that concept so offensive? You’ll be happy the day your computer loses power while you are in the midst of scribbling, since you will be able to pick up exactly where you were.
Didn’t you save your document? What does that mean?
It means I want to keep it. I don’t think that is a broken metaphor at all.
As for “I just want to scribble”. Why don’t you just scribble in a file called “Scribbles”?
Wait a minute: in the real world I do not need to name anything to make scribbles. I also do not have a paradigm where there is a fork between versions and create a new document that goes off in one direction while the other document goes in another. At the end of the other documents time, why can’t I just get rid of it if my what if scenario didn’t work out? Oh I have to now find the thing and take even more time to figure out how to get rid of it. I also have to choose where to keep something if it is going to auto save, and I work on multiple computers all around the world so it makes no sense for me to expect it to “save somewhere”.
Also, when I am working on what if scenarios, they are not scribbles. They are taking a document that sometimes can take several minutes to load, and might take many minutes to process. They might be excel sheets, they might by python pandas projects, they might be painting projects or 3d renders.
I have no need for cloud services either, that sucks as well. I have my own server, my own world wide storage locations. I would like to decide when I where I put stuff.
Didn’t you save your document? What does that mean?
It means I want to keep it. I don’t think that is a broken metaphor at all.
It will not come natural to people who are used to work with physical documents that you need to remember to “save” an edit, or the document reverts back to the state it was when you opened it.
in the real world I do not need to name anything to make scribbles.
No, but you need to have a physical document to scribble on, which, after you have scribbled will remain in the state you left it until you take the active decision to throw it away.
I also do not have a paradigm where there is a fork between versions and create a new document that goes off in one direction while the other document goes in another.
Have you never used a copy machine?
At the end of the other documents time, why can’t I just get rid of it if my what if scenario didn’t work out?
Just throw it in the recycle bin? Another real-life metaphor. Do you often find objects in your physical world disappearing without no action from you?
I also have to choose where to keep something if it is going to auto save
Following the typical cloud implementation, you do not. Just start editing. It will be placed in a default folder under a default name until you rename it / and or move it somewhere else. (These operations are usually provided in more convenient ways than in “save paradigm” software, e.g., the name is shown as a title, just click to change it)
They are taking a document that sometimes can take several minutes to load, and might take many minutes to process. They might be excel sheets, they might by python pandas projects, they might be painting projects or 3d renders.
All of these – except the Python Pandas project (see below) – could still (and probably should) work according to a “you edit the doc itself, no need to save” paradigm. The larger the underlying file, the less sense does it make to forcibly have to work on a copy; either in RAM (if it fits) or if it doesn’t fit, the software has to create an on-disk copy of your huge file behind your back, in case you decide to not save. Leading to all these messy “recovery semantics” that no one likes.
Now, the context of this whole thread is IMO GUI software. When it comes to programming/programmatic tools, e.g. Python Pandas, R, Matlab, etc., that is a different thing. There you have a choice to work in RAM or on disk depending on your needs.
It will be placed in a default folder under a default name until you rename it / and or move it somewhere else.
What a nightmare.
Why don’t we just let things default to not auto save but you can turn it on at anytime.
I personally hate it. Absolutely hate it.
I want to put things where I want them the first time when I am ready. I don’t use cloud services, I have my own network and cloud file shares. I don’t want some program choosing when and where to save something for me, because it is extra work finding all these garbage files I didn’t ask for.
An arrow pointing into a folder, similar to this. Sidesteps the tech issue altogether.
I mean, you’re just replacing one archaic symbol with another.
I still use folders to organize paper documents. Taxes and medical stuff mostly.
Normal people call computer directories ‘folders’.
Which predate computers and floppy disks
I agree. I heard recently a lot of kids under 20 grew up in an iPhone, iPad, and chrome world and never learned “folder” or directory concepts so it’s a tough transition in the work world. Paper organizers are not nearly as ubiquitous as they once were.
It connects it to another computer symbol, the folder which is seen plenty of times as the thing containing files. It’s a solid solution.
Isn’t that used as an icon for moving a file from one folder to another?
i think in that case your should first click on a “folder with arrow going out” (move out) icon before given this one to move into another directory. so the context is clear.
Yeah, if an open folder icon means ‘open a file’, then this inversion means saving the file.
That’s a good one for local storage.
Some software uses that arrow with a cloud to say it’s saved into the cloud.
Yea replace the 90s tech icon for the filing cabinet paper folder , from who knows when. It’s actually a good suggestions this technology still hasn’t disappeared. But it will soon, as foretold by the paperless office prophecies. So I think a half buried treasure chest icon would be better as a forever lasting icon.
We should do away with directories. Just one big block of files.
Screw multiple files, just use one big one. Just append anything you want to add and you’ll have everything in 1 spot
Makes sense. Then you can add some kind of index to the file so you can jump to the parts you want. Just track a list of chunks, so they don’t have to be contiguous.
Yeah, and we could give that huge file some kind of internal and logical structure to find those chunks, maybe something hierarchical with human readable names!
Yeah! Now we’re cooking! I bet we could really improve resiliency and seek times with different data structures, too. B trees?
Or maybe we could keep the flat structure and have some kind of syntax for querying the data… some kind of structured language.
You’ve basically invented OneNote
Crap, I was hoping to invent file systems.
Easy to find saves time
PalmOS actually did that. Programs had records saved in a central database, not files.
I don’t want you to take this as hyperbole: go away and never come back, Google
Yes look everything up by
keyworddescribing its contents to AI agent.
I reject the question. That’s not a picture of a floppy disc, that is the glyph that means save
You literally called it the save symbol. And that’s what it is…100 years from now, if we’re still around and still have computers, the save icon will still be some stylized glyph based on the floppy disc
The existence of the floppy disc is already just a bit of trivia about the save icon
It’s like asking what we should change the Bluetooth symbol to? Why do you yearn for the world to burn?
An icon can be any random glyph, but it has to stay recognizable and consistent in meaning, that’s the entire concept here
What till people find out what “dashboard” originally meant.
By OP’s logic, this
#A
is a drawing of an ox head.
Hope you are right.
But really the Save icon will become: ✨
thats’s the Google AI icon
Why you want to save file if you can just feed if you ai and let it hallucinate if you want to read it
“All your base (data) are belong to us” -Google AI
… Why is the generative llm glyph here? nervous
You can’t just jump to the future, so use this one for the next decade:
… but platter drives are old hat, SSDs are the new hotness?
Can’t skip a generation, gotta go from the floppy disk icon to the HDD icon for a while first.
Forgot about Zip drives.
Meh, just a hard floppy. Although I really did appreciate my Zip 100 drive for that storage space before writable CDs came along.
That’s the joke.
But hard drives came first.
Well it’s not a very good one.
Isnt this just a hdd platter?
Oh wait im dumb its a 75 record
Hard drives pre-dated floppy discs by 15 years.
I bow to thy argumentation. This be-eth the way
SD card. Half us old timers won’t even realize it’s not a floppy disk.
Yet 90% of young people won’t know what it is because digital cameras have been replaced by phones and phones no longer have microSD lol
Gotta give the next gen something to complain about.
In the dystopia of outer-worlds-esque orwellien-surveillance corporate feudalism it looks like they will have to endure, I think we can afford to lighten up on them 😂
Digital cameras are in style again. I’ve seen screenless ones for sale at several places these past few weeks.
I would also accept any other recognizable, removable media. Even a generic USB stick would be more relevant than a floppy disk.
every letter in the alphabet started as a symbol of something 2500-6000 years ago, “A” for instance is an upside-down Ox head. people in future generations will continue using the floppy symbol, cuz they learned that means saving, despite floppies not being relevant to their lives
A crucifix…
…because Jesus saves.
And takes half damage
When jesus saaaay “yes”, nobody can’t say “you don’t have the permissions to write on this volume” 🎶
Early, and often.
And saves you from swearing…
I think we should just keep the floppy disk symbol at this point, because it doesn’t matter what it was originally based on or whether that exists any more–everyone knows what that symbol means, and it can’t really be confused with anything else.
There’s no point making an icon that looks like any other particular kind of storage device since those are changing all the time. So we either have to pick some real world thing like a safe or warehouse or grain silo or whatever. or invent some completely new symbol that’s not related to anything and then everyone would have to learn it. Which takes us back to just keeping the floppy disk symbol.
grain silo
This is a hilariously awkward suggestion. At the scale of the average save icon, what do you think a grain silo symbol would look like?
like this?
drawing a grain silo doesn’t mean you have to draw the grains.
Honestly probably the most universally recognizable save symbol in the end, certainly if I had to go back in time and establish contact with an ancient people and teach them Intuit Quickbooks or other tax accounting software to run a cutthroat tax accounting operation using timetravel to access low cost labor that would be the icon I would choose for saving.
