One of the most obscure but valuable features of AppGameKit 2's IDE is the ability to make automatic time-stamped backups of your source code every time you save. Although a more formal approach to this would be setting up a local git repository and such, this built-in feature can go a long way to helping ensure you never overwrite good code with bad or otherwise end up with corrupted code. Here are the instructions for setting up this feature.
1.) Launch the AppGameKit IDE and then select
Tools > Plugin Manager from the top file menu.
2.) Check the box next to "
Save Actions" and then click on
Preferences.
3.) Click on the
Backup Copy tab and then check the "
Enable" button.
4.) Select a directory to house all of your backup source files; I recommend this being on a separate drive from your main project files if possible (in case of hard drive failure).
5.) You can optionally adjust the date and time format that the source code will append as desired. It uses the
strftime Linux properties and is very customizable. By default it will be in the format of
YYYY-MM-DD-HH-MM-SS, but for instance you can remove some of the dashes like so "
%Y%m%d-%H%M%S"
6.) Set the
Directory Levels to Include in the Backup Destination to
1. This will automatically create a new folder in your previously defined backup directory (step #4) for each project you create, assuming you are storing your .agc files in each project's base folder.
7.) Click
OK to save the settings and then click
OK again to close the plugin manager.
Now, the next time you save any given source code, an exact copy of it at that point in time will be saved to your backup folder. This way if you ever irreversibly mess up your code you will always be able to recover any previously saved version and restore from that! You can clean out this backup folder whenever you wish but since they are just text source files they will not take up very much space.
