powerful undo

[kalos]

hello!

I need a powerful Undo context menu of WinXP, that will open submenus with all previous actions archived and ready to be undo'ed

thanks!

[Curt]

your wording "all previous actions" is of course nonsense.
What kind of actions are you talking about?

[vlastimil]

If you want to have control over files in a folder and be able to see previous revisions, differences and such things, maybe you are looking for some kind of source code management system like Mercurial, Git, SVN, etc.

[kalos]

well, I basically mean what current undo does in WinXP's Windows Explorer, ie. undelete, unmove, unrename files etc

but it offers to undo only the last action, while I would like to undo any previous too

also, undoing closing of windows, applications, or whatever else could be useful, would be nice too

[kalos]

any??

[Ath]

any??

What vlastimil said is probably the most reliable and usable option. Have you tried that already?

Restoring closed windows is handled by one of Skrommel's snacks, GoneIn60s, afaik.

[kalos]

to be honest, I didnt undestand a thing of what vlastimil said 

[x16wda]

also, undoing closing of windows, applications, or whatever else could be useful, would be nice too

ReOpen may do part of what you want, it will let you re-open folders or programs that you have recently used.

[skwire]

any??

Kalos, in regards to your file system requests, I don't think you realise the insane complexity of what you're asking for.  How do you expect a program to automatically keep track of all sorts of changes, deletes, copies, moves and such and then, poof, just let you restore stuff at the drop of a hat?  File systems simply don't work that way...

to be honest, I didnt undestand a thing of what vlastimil said 

What vlastimil is talking about is probably your only hope of approximating what you want in regards to file system changes and this is what as known as a version control system (VCS).  Here's a quick read describing what such a thing can do for you:

http://abdullin.com/wiki/version-control-system-vcs.html

However, this is not an automatic, everything-on-your-system type of thing.  That is, you would have to commit snapshots of the files and such you want to be able to revert to.  All this, of course, would require a decent amount of setup on your part.  In addition, you would need a good amount of disk space if you plan to try and version control large numbers of (large) files.

[Shades]

+1 to the post above

Besides that, you have to have the discipline to keep using the selected VCS system for all the files you want to keep track of. And that is a lot harder for users that don't quite grasp the concept and/or significance of these kind of systems.

Read up on the material already offered by skwire, there are threads here in DC that discuss these systems in more detail and search on the internet for (free) books on this subject.

Once you get the logic behind such systems, you'll wonder how you ever could have gotten by (with computing) before.

Oh yeah, don't make the mistake of using VCS systems as an alternative for a backup. 

[Ampa]

@skwire: I think you're coming at this from the wrong end... no need to monitor and record all those things! Simply with the invention of a time machine it would be easy to step back to an earlier moment in the 4th dimension, with no need to 'undo' anything - physics would take care of it all!

[skwire]

@skwire: I think you're coming at this from the wrong end... no need to monitor and record all those things! Simply with the invention of a time machine it would be easy to step back to an earlier moment in the 4th dimension, with no need to 'undo' anything - physics would take care of it all!

Ha.    If it were that easy...

[kalos]

an OS with such feature implemented in OS-level would be marvelous!

[jgpaiva]

In terms of filesystems, there are a bunch of them that don't really delete anything and keep a previous version of every item. Obviously, they can run out of space quickly, and finding the specific previous version you are looking for might be a small nightmare.
What you mentioned also seems vaguely related to Shadow Copy^w.
But at least in terms of deleted files, I believe the best option is to extend the recycle bin maximum size to the max (see here). This allows you to retrieve everything you delete from the recycle bin.

[tomos]

For important work, I use FileHamster (FH) - it will archive a copy of your file when you save it - lots of other apps do this, often even better than FH, but FH has the ability to save a note with each backup version. Also it has a reasonable viewer for looking at your backup/related-notes. It works reasonably well and has great potential imo, but neither the general public nor the developers seem interested in extending it (e.g. via tagging of files). See here for more details of my usage if you're interested. You'll need the full "Advanced" paid version (I think there's a trial).