The changes you make to a drawing exist only in the computer's temporary memory until you "Save" the drawing to a file on a hard drive or to a network server.
Two native
File Formats
are provided by EazyDraw; EazyDraw Graphic Format and EazyDraw Binary Format. The format is selected from a popup menu found on the lower portion of the save panel.
This
export panel
may also be used to save a drawing to disk. This method is used to save the drawing in other file formats.
Save As:
if you wish to save a copy of a drawing under a different name use the "Save As" selection. This command presents the directory navigation sheet that allows entry of the name and selection of the folder location for the drawing. The original drawing's document file is not modified, a new file is created with the new name, location, and drawing contents. The new copy then becomes the current drawing (for this window) and further changes to the document apply to the new file. further drawing activity and saves for the canvas will be saved in the NEW file. The change of your working file is reflected in the title show at the top of the drawing window.
Save To:
is used to save a copy of a drawing under another name. This action is similar to "Save As" except the current drawing window does not change. Further drawing activity and saves for the drawing are saved to the OLD file rather than the NEW version. The new copy remains unchanged, unless specifically opened again.
The Compress popup is used to select a Compression algorithm to reduce the size of the saved file. All compression algorithms are loss-less which means that all drawing details are retained in the saved drawing file. Only GZip is available at this time. This is normally recommended when emailing drawings of significant complexity.
The Hide Extension check box can be used to omit the trailing extension file identifier code for the saved file. This will apply to the display on this panel and other file browsers on your system. The check box state is saved with the system information of the file.
When checked, Thumbnail Preview check box is cause a custom icon to be created for your file. The Icon will be a "Thumbnail" image of the contents of your file. This thumbnail becomes the Icon displayed for your file on the desktop, in Finder windows, and the file system browsers on your system.
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-- Save As -- Don't Save -- Frequently and Often.
We can't emphasize this point enough, please read thoroughly. When working on a large complex drawing it is advisable to Save To or Save As frequently. Everyone knows when working on computer it is always advised to "Save" frequently. While this is good advise, a simple save offers minimal protection of the results of your work. A simple Save does not allow you to "Go Back" to an earlier version of your drawing. Save As and Save To provide separate files at each step, these can be used to return to a previous version of your drawing. This is important in many cases of hardware, software, and user mistakes. If, for example, a large portion of the drawing - on an off screen page - was inadvertently deleted. A simple save in this case would cause a potentially devastating loss of this portion of your drawing, with no avenue for recovery. Software and hardware failures can also corrupt a drawing - a save will only make the corrupt information permanent, resulting in irrevocable loss of the last "good" copy of the file.
The file name provided at the top of the panel is automatically incremented with a simple numbering system. If you need another more specific name, just type and enter the desired name.
An attached thumbnail icon will transfer with your file to other computers. If the file is emailed to other Mac OS X users, they will see the custom icon and not the system provided EazyDraw document icon.
The custom thumbnail icon information is attached to files in the Resource Fork. The overall disk space occupied by the file and associated resource fork will increase by 30 to 60 kBytes.
The Finder may be used to copy and paste these thumbnails. From the Finder, select Get Info for the two files or folders of interest. Select the icon image found on the upper left of the information window - a faint border is then shown around the icon. You may then Copy the icon. On the other information window, select the icon and Paste -- the icon will then become the preview thumbnail for the file or folder.
A thumbnail that is something other than the entire drawing may be applied from the
Export ICNS
panel. Use this approach to select a key feature of the drawing for the thumbnail preview.
The Finder Get Info window may be used to remove a custom thumbnail icon. Select the file, perform Get Info, select the thumbnail icon on the upper left of the information window, hit delete. This will return the file display icon to the standard one derived from the operating system.
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