Saving

I suppose this is something that would need to be tackled at the application level instead of the desktop level, but I’ll share anyway.

Storage is pretty cheap, search makes it easy to find stuff, and I should never lose my work.

With those things in mind, applications should regularly auto-save by default, i.e. every few minutes. I’m not even sure that the save button should exist any more, Tomboy manages quite well without it.

Further, many online services and desktop applications integrate revision tracking, and it’s incredibly useful: if you decide on a new direction for your essay, 10 minutes later realise you hate all your changes, no problem, you can just role back to an old revision of the file.

Final point, which probably presents the greatest challenge from a free software point of view, is that there should be universal integration with a remote backup service, without the user having to set anything up or maintain it. Specifically, I believe that my local data should be synced remotely so there are always two copies available, one of which would be accessible any where I have a web connection. Being able to edit online while away from the computer is a bonus, having your files safe is a necessity.