Change the wording in snapshots

[Perryg]

The way that I see it you can relabel all the buttons anyway you want and it will never serve a useful purpose for everyone.
The concept was to make a snapshot so if you did an update or added a program and something went south, or you found that you had picked up a virus you could always revert back to a useful state.
Now everyone saw this and decided to use it instead of backing up like they really should and guess what. It does not work that way!
I have seen people that had 6, 8, and even 12 snapshots and wondered what to do with them.
The way it works you should create a write through disk and attach it to the VM and store your data in that so if you revert or merge it is not included and no data is lost.
This is even covered in the users guide (which no one reads).

Edit: One last parting point. I see these as a system restore like Windows uses. Once you restore you have to live with what you get. It may save your bacon but you will loose what ever you have installed. As long as you use the write through disk your data is saved. Without that you are going to loose everything including the data.

[MarkCranness]

The way that I see it you can relabel all the buttons anyway you want and it will never serve a useful purpose for everyone.

True, not for Everyone. But it can be improved a whole heap for a lot of people from what it is now.
Using Writethrough disks is good advice for most people.

Here's my latest go:

Use the steps below to determine the label for the 'Discard Snapshot' action (button and context menu):
(The label will change for each snapshot, according to what that snapshot will do = depends upon which snapshot has been clicked/selected.)

If a snapshot has 1 or more Normal hard disks attached and ALL of those Normal hard disks are also Base disks, then use one of the labels below:

• Discard Snapshot and Copy Current State to Hard Disks
  Used only for the last (leaf) snapshot in the list (branch).
• Discard Snapshot and Copy Following Snapshot to Hard Disks
  Used for all snapshots except for the last (leaf) snapshot in the list (branch).

Otherwise, if a snapshot has 1 or more Normal hard disks attached and SOME of the Normal hard disks are Base disks and SOME are Differencing disks (the Base disks will be backwards merged into the Base VDI, but the differencing disks will not!), then use:

• Argg!
  Use the same label as for the above ALL Normal=Base test, but possibly with a modification/clue/asterisk/warning?
  ('... Some Hard Disks' ?)
  Ignore this possibility and fall through to the next test?

Otherwise, if this is the last (leaf) snapshot in the list (branch):

• Discard Snapshot, Keeping Current State

Otherwise (by elimination, there are either: No Normal disks attached (only Writethrough or Immutable or no disks at all), OR ALL Normal hard disks are Differencing disks).

• Discard Snapshot

Note: The above steps are based on my understanding of what the code will actually do and therefore might not be correct.
Comments on correctness of code behaviour and/or label text please.

[Entegy]

I skimmed over the topic since I made it, but all I really meant was that "discard" didn't not save the changes. Cause guess what? I just ****ing hit discard in an attempt to get rid of a snapshot and ended up merging it with the parent disk.

[MarkCranness]

Cause guess what? I just ****ing hit discard in an attempt to get rid of a snapshot and ended up merging it with the parent disk.

The new snapshot system (promised in the "next major release") will have operations of:
- Delete snapshot
- Restore snaphot (any in tree)

... so look forward to more of the same, unless Sun take care to make the behaviour of the 'Delete' operation completely clear and unambigious.

I really hope Sun fix it. We can help Sun fix it, if they will let us.