The File History is a panel that sits docked at the left side of EditPad’s window. You can make it visible by selecting File History in the View menu. You can dock the panel elsewhere by dragging its caption bar or its tab.The File History is a panel that sits docked at the left side of EditPad’s window. You can make it visible by selecting File History in the View menu. You can dock the panel elsewhere by dragging its caption bar or its tab.
The File History shows a list of all backup files that exist for the file you’re currently editing in EditPad Pro. To determine which files are backups, the File History uses the “backup copies” setting in the Save Files Preferences. The File History will only show files that follow the naming method you selected in the Save Files Preferences. To make the File History useful, you should select one of the “multi backup” options or the “hidden history” option. These are the only backup methods that can keep more than one backup copy of any given file.
The File History will display two dates for each backup file: the modification date and the backup date. When creating a backup copy, EditPad Pro sets the backup’s last modification time stamp to that of the original file. E.g. Today, December 1st, you open a file last modified on November 27th. When you save the file, EditPad Pro will create a backup copy with a modification date of November 27th. The original file will get a modification date of December 1st. When you view the contents of the backup folder in Windows Explorer, the backup file’s date will show the November 27 modification date.
The backup date indicates the date that the backup copy was made. In the example above, that would be December 1st. If you right-click on the file in Windows Explorer and select properties, the file’s creation date will indicate the date the backup copy was made.
Select one of the backup copies and click the Compare button to show the differences between the backup copy and the state the file currently has in EditPad Pro. You will be asked for the same file comparison options used by Extra|Compare Files. The backup copy will be highlighted as the “old” file, and the file you’re editing in EditPad Pro as the “new” file.
To compare two backup copies with each other, first open the younger copy of the two. Then, select the older copy and click the Compare button. The backup copy you’ve opened in EditPad Pro will always be highlighted as the “new” file, because it takes the role of the file you’re currently editing. Therefore, you should open the younger copy of the two you want to compare. This will avoid confusion as to which is which.
When the active tab has file comparison highlights, the File History will show the full paths of the files that were compared along with their colors. The color for the original file, or the “old” file, is used to highlight lines only present in that file. The color for the edited file, or the “new” file, is used to highlight lines only present in that file. Lines present in both files are not highlighted.
Select a backup file and click the Open button to open the file in a tab for viewing or editing. The tab will indicate the file name of the backup file. If you try to save the backup file with File|Save, EditPad Pro will prompt you for a file name. You should save the file under a new name rather than overwriting a backup file. If you overwrite a backup file, EditPad Pro will make a backup of the backup, which can get confusing.
If you open a backup copy via the File History, the File History will continue to display the backup copies of the original file. You should not use File|Open or other commands to open backup copies outside the File History, because then the link between the backup and the original won’t be established.
The Save Milestone button saves the file you’re editing in EditPad Pro. However, it does not overwrite the original file. Instead, it creates a separate “milestone” copy. The milestone copy will appear among the backup files in the File History. The difference between a milestone copy and a backup copy is that EditPad Pro will automatically delete backup copies when they exceed the number and age limits you specified in the Open Files Preferences. Milestone copies are never automatically deleted. They function as a more permanent backup. You should make a milestone copy whenever you’re embarking on a more involved editing task that you might want to undo entirely.
If you forgot to save a milestone copy, you can do so afterwards as long as there’s still a backup copy of the file in the state it had when you should have saved the milestone. Simply open that backup copy via the File History, and click the Save Milestone button. When you save a milestone of a backup file that you’ve opened via the File History, EditPad Pro will make a copy of that backup file, and turn it into a milestone of the original file.
If you save a milestone of a file that has unsaved changes, the milestone will be identical to the in-memory copy of the file rather than a copy of the file on disk. The milestone will include your unsaved changes. The file on disk is not affected. So you could use the milestone feature to save unsaved changes without actually saving the file, in order to make a backup of changes you plan to abandon.
The Save Milestone for All Files in Project button will create a milestone copy of each file in the current project, just like the Save Milestone button does for the current file.
Click the Revert button to replace the original file with the selected backup file. EditPad Pro will first create a new backup copy from the original file, and then replace the original file with the selected backup file. The last modification date on the reverted file will be that of the backup file, rather than that of the moment you clicked the Revert button. The selected backup file is deleted in the process.
If you change your mind after reverting a file, select the backup file with the most recent backup date, which is the backup created by the reversion. Click the Revert button again to restore the file and its backups to the way they were before the first reversion. If you are using the numbered backups, the numbers of the backups will have shifted, but their modification dates and their contents will be as they were.
If you edit and save a file after reverting it, the backup made when saving will have the same modification date as the backup that you reverted to and will thus appear at that position in the list of backups rather than at the top.
The Delete button has 3 subitems. You can choose to delete only the selected backup file, all backup files for the file that is active in EditPad, or all backup files for all files in the project that is active in EditPad.