What changes when you export an image?

[ncJohn]

When working with an image, if you export it then close the image, before it closes a little "close document" window comes up that says, "image xxx has been modified. The document is about to close, would you like to save your changes?" 

How does exporting it modify it?

Just to be clear, the chain of events is: edit or create image, save it as afphoto, export it as jpg or tiff, then close. So what changes after the "save"?

[walt.farrell]

Take a look at the History panel before and after the Export and before closing. That should show you what the application thinks has changed.

[ncJohn]

Well, the only history entry is "apply the export options preset" which is something along the lines of "TIFF RGB 16-bit." But I would think that would apply only to the exported TIFF, not the image that stays behind.

[v_kyr]

I can't reproduce this behavior under OSX. After saving an altered document as an .afphoto file and then afterwards exporting it as a JPG will here not mark/flag the file as being dirty again. I can close the file as normally expected. - Are you using a APh Mac or Win version?

[walt.farrell]

I think that any changes to the history count as a modification, and thus cause that prompt.

 

I have noticed something like this this with another program, where I could open a file, print it, and discovered that the act of specifying the print options counted as a modification.

[ncJohn]

1 minute ago, v_kyr said:

I can't reproduce this behavior under OSX. After saving an altered document as an .afphoto file and then afterwards exporting it as a JPG will here not mark/flag the file as being dirty again. I can close the file as normally expected. - Are you using a APh Mac or Win version?

Windows 8.1. 

[ncJohn]

1 minute ago, walt.farrell said:

I think that any changes to the history count as a modification, and thus cause that prompt.

 

I have noticed something like this this with another program, where I could open a file, print it, and discovered that the act of specifying the print options counted as a modification.

Adobe Illustrator CS does that when printing.

 

If AP is using the history as an indicator that the image has changed, I suppose that would be an easy way to do it but that one extra wasted mouse click, over many images, is quite a nuisance.

[v_kyr]

Hmm, though I didn't saved during tryouts with the keep file history settings enabled. It's possible that this (the save files with history) as Walt says makes a difference and then recognizes and flags any further done document operation as file been dirty.

[Alfred]

One thing I’ve never liked is that if the ‘Save History’ option is turned off and you undo all changes made since the last save, the file is still marked as dirty.

[v_kyr]

Is the behavior here different with activated (turned on) ‘Save History’ option?

[ncJohn]

It doesn't seem to matter whether or not "save history" is turned on.

[v_kyr]

Then it's probably a Windows version related issue.

[carl123]

I think it's something to do with export settings...

The first time you export the file you will be asked to save your afphoto file

If you then export again and again with the same export settings you are not subsequently asked to save the afphoto file

But if you export again and change something in the export format you will be asked to save the afphoto file again

 

( Windows 8.0)

[Gerard O]

I also have the same behaviour , Windows 10. I always accept the second 'save' just in case!

I notice the same behaviour in MS Word. If I save a document in the normal way and then save it as PDF or XPS format.

I assume it is a simple flag which gets set when any change is made and that flag prompts the second request

 

[Roger C]

On 20/03/2018 at 6:33 AM, carl123 said:

The first time you export the file you will be asked to save your afphoto file

Yes, that's my experience with Windows 10.

 

On 20/03/2018 at 0:47 AM, walt.farrell said:

I think that any changes to the history count as a modification, and thus cause that prompt.

As Walt  Farrell says, specifying the export options is a change to the document and is saved in the history; thus the afphoto file wants that change to be saved.

[R C-R]

FWIW, I tested with Affinity Photo v1.6.7 on a Mac running High Sierra, with save history disabled.

 

1. Using Photo Persona File > Export, neither did the History panel record the export step nor did the file name in the document window get the "[Modified]" suffix. Closing the file after the export did not result in a 'file has been modified' notification.

2. Switching instead to the Export Persona to do the export immediately added the "[Modified]" suffix & the History panel added an "Export setup (assistant)" step to the History. Even if I just switched back to the Photo Persona without actually doing an export, as expected closing the file resulted in the 'file has been modified' notification.

[ncJohn]

So it seems that there are a lot of factors in whether or not this "file has been modified" notification shows up. But if I understand correctly, as long as the only thing I've done since saving the file is to export it, then the file really hasn't been changed at all and it really doesn't matter whether I answer "yes" or "no" to the question.

[v_kyr]

Such things are always also implementation dependent, how document events listeners are setup, to what events these are connected (aka to what events they are listening). The undo management (undo/redo) is also associated here with it's event listeners etc. So as far as some event occurs which fires a change, the corresponding listeners are informed (do recognize this) and invoke some update on the document managers routines which do in turn flag/set an in memory file buffer then as being dirty. - For a better description see also the GoF observer pattern etc.

So it's finally a matter here of what operations/events the software is internally be listening for. - If in APh for example exporting does fire any relevant change event, then it's document manager might be informed to flag/set the associated docs to be marked as dirty.