Auto Snapshot for Flash IDE

WHY?
Have you ever been in one of those intense code/design blitzes in the Flash IDE (fueled by Red Bull perhaps?) and suddenly realized that you made the wrong coding or design decision like 45 minutes ago? And you've been dutifully saving every few minutes... but how do you get back to where you were 45 minutes ago? Unless you've been backing up your file with a different name you only have your one original FLA..

This little snapshot panel thing will automatically save your FLA and save a backup FLA.. so if you decide you need to go back to where you were 45minutes ago in your code then you can just open one of the snapshot FLAs and keep on trucking. Think of it as a very crude versioning system..

If you don't like the idea of it doing things automatically you can disable the automatic feature and press the "Snapshot NOW" button whenever you want your file saved and a snapshot taken.

What you'll end up with is a series of files like:

yourOriginal.FLA
yourOriginal_bak_20071124011959.FLA        11/24/2007      1:19AM
yourOriginal_bak_20071124013004.FLA        11/24/2007      1:30AM
yourOriginal_bak_20071124014032.FLA        11/24/2007      1:40AM
yourOriginal_bak_20071124015051.FLA        11/24/2007      1:50AM

One limitation is that this currently only handles files with the extension FLA... so it can't back up your .JSFL or .AS files.
Another limitation is that if you have it set to automatically take a snapshot every 10 mins and you don't make any changes to your FLAs it's STILL going to pop up an alert every 10 mins asking if you want to take a snapshot. I haven't found a way in JSFL to check if the open FLAs have been modified unless I save them first.

How to get it
grab the .MXP (37k)

How to install it
Use the Macromedia Extension Manager (If you don't already have it from your Flash IDE install then you can grab it here: Adobe Extension Manager)

How to use it
Launch the Flash MX 2004 IDE and then   Windows>Other Panels>Auto Snapshot
You can dock or undock it just like any other panel in Flash..

Automatic: Set the Time between snapshots to however many minutes you want to pass between snapshots

Manual: Press the Snapshot NOW button anytime you want a snapshot taken. It will only save and take a snapshot if your FLA has been altered since the last save, so if you press the button and nothing happens it's probably because none of your open FLAs need to be saved.

What it does
This is what will happen when a snapshot is created:

1. An alert box will pop up and ask if you want to take a snapshot.
2. If you have not altered your FLA then nothing happens.. no saving.. no snapshot.
3. If you have altered your FLA then it will be saved and a snapshot will be taken
   1. Since your FLA was just automatically saved a new layer is added and then deleted (now your FLA has been altered and can be saved again)
   2. The FLA will be saved to the same folder as the original FLA, and will have _bak_N.FLA appended to it where N is the snapshot number.. like yourCoolFLA_bak_20071124011959.FLA
   3. Since your FLA was just saved with a new name it means the current document now has that new name.. so it will be closed.
   4. Your original FLA will be opened.
   5. A report will be written out to the output panel saying which FLAs had snapshots taken of them.

It will create a snapshot of any open FLAs tha have been altered.

It should remember your settings.. so if you set it to snapshot automatically every 30 mins you should see those same settings the next time you start the Flash IDE.

Reporting bugs/feature requests/thanks
Go to the contact page and send me an e-mail. I give no guarantees that I'll respond, fix the bug, or add the feature, but I'll try.