Settings on cloud resets Backup path

glennfromiowa

So this morning, I discovered a feature that apparently was added over a year ago, to save Notepad++ settings to a shared location (or “cloud” location). I think this is one of the best-kept secrets of Notepad++!! However, there was an unexpected side-effect when I enabled it. Read on and let me know what you think of my conclusions and questions.

The Good

I went into Settings -> Preferences -> Cloud -> and selected the Set your cloud location path here: radio button.
I then entered the shared path into the text box below it.
It prompted me that the change would take effect when I restarted. And it did exactly what it said, apparently copying certain files from my %APPDATA%\Notepad++ folder.

The Bad

Although it says “cloud location” (i.e. DropBox, Google Drive, etc.), I wasn’t able to get either Google Drive nor Microsoft OneDrive web locations to validate for the path (haven’t gotten a DropBox account yet). I had to install Google Drive for PC (which synced Google Drive to a local folder) to be able to access it. Eh, not exactly as advertised, but workable.

The Ugly

Later today, I was researching another issue that had come up, and noticed some other things:

Under Settings -> Preferences -> Backup, the checkbox for Enable session snapshot and periodic backup was Unchecked. I know last week it had been Checked!
The Backup path: had been changed from my %APPDATA%\Notepad++\backup folder to the Google Drive shared folder. Apparently, this folder location is read-only, since when I again checked the Enable session snapshot and periodic backup box, I was not able to change it.
I’m sure at least one of the files I normally have open had some unsaved changes in it, but I noticed that all of the files open in my session were saved! I’m hoping it just opened the previously saved version rather than the unsaved, backed-up version (as that would be better than inserting incomplete changes into a previously saved file). And when the Enable…backup button became Unchecked, why didn’t it prompt to save the file?

Conclusion and questions

I’m unsure whether to call this a bug, since changing settings do often impact other settings. However, it would be just fabulous to have a warning pop up notifying the user that checking this box would change these settings!

Also, I’m somewhat unsure whether it’s appropriate to have the Backup path forced to move with the settings to the cloud.

Apparently the session.xml file does not move to the cloud, but is retained in the %APPDATA%\Notepad++ folder. This makes sense, as you could have different sessions open on different computers.
However, if that’s the case, why must the backup folder move to the cloud? Theoretically, the backup folder can backup files from multiple sessions, as it appends the date and time to the file name each time. But why?
Finally, although it seems safer to have the backup files in the cloud, I sometimes edit large files, and worry if the available space I have will be exceeded. I’d like to have a choice as to whether files are backed up on the cloud or to the local drive.

I can post an issue to GitHub about this, but wanted some feedback first on what most users would expect for this feature.

Claudia Frank

@glennfromiowa

I checked this feature some time ago and yes, at that time it doesn’t handle
web addresses instead you needed to provide either a mapped drive letter
or the unc path. I assume, if it would allow accessing the cloud location
via http/https then it would be needed to program the different login
approaches as well like google is using this way to authorize while dropbox is using
that etc…
By installing the pc client npp doesn’t need to do anything different as it does
when accessing the local hard disc.
:-) As mentioned in your other post - yes the backuppath isn’t editable you either
can use the standard one or by using the cloud functionality the cloud path.

But I cannot reproduce your reporting.
Must admit, that it isn’t really the cloud I used but a network share and I assume
in terms of config settings it should behave the same.
So once I set the cloud config, I restarted npp and then checked backup settings
which were still the same (checked).

Concerning conclusion and questions, I would vote for a customizable backuppath.
When it comes to how big a file can/should be to get uploaded then you might
trap into the pitfall that you have two/three files with different content.
Uploaded file with the changes until it exceeded the size limit, another one
which is saved locally because of limit and maybe the original (not yet saved) version.
Don’t know if this is desirable.

Cheers
Claudia

chcg

There were individual settings for dropbox, google drive, onedrive , see versions https://notepad-plus-plus.org/download/v6.6.6.html - https://notepad-plus-plus.org/download/v6.7.html
, which caused some troubles and adaptation to changed cloud access/behaviour and finally in https://notepad-plus-plus.org/download/v6.8.html this was changed to

Settings on cloud feature allows users to write their settings on whichever cloud.
, see https://notepad-plus-plus.org/download/v6.8.html