This is about the most recent version of LibreOffice on Windows 10. I can’t speak for other versions.

My daughter worked hard on her social studies essay. I type things in for her because she’s a really bad typist, but she tells me what to write… but I didn’t remember to manually save her social studies essay yesterday, and for some reason the ThinkPad rebooted, LibreOffice crashed and we lost the whole thing… because autosave was not automatically on when I installed it.

No, recovery didn’t work. We just got a blank file.

I rewrote it for her based on the information we had and what I remembered and tried to make it sound like what a 13-year-old would write because it was basically my fault and she did do the work. I did have her sit with me as I wrote it in case she didn’t like something I wrote, but it was sort of cheating. I’m okay with that cheating since I know she worked hard on it.

First, though, I went into the settings and turned on autosave.

I like LibreOffice, but why the hell is that not on automatically? Honestly, I don’t really understand why someone wouldn’t want their documents autosaved, but I’m pretty sure most people would want that.

This isn’t fucking 1993. I shouldn’t have to remember to save a document anymore and it shouldn’t be lost forever because of it.

Like I said, I like LibreOffice. I don’t really want to trust documents to Microsoft or Google. But this was really annoying.

  • @cosmicrookie
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    249 months ago

    I just don’t get the point.

    Sure she isn’t great at typing but typing is how you get good at typing. You can’t expect a professional essay by a 13 year old and I expect teachers to know this. Just let children learn, fail an learn by failing.

    She would also have learned to save if you had let her do this instead.

    I don’t know how educational systems work where you are but I expect homework to be adjusted to reasonable expectations. Why get involved beyond giving advice and maybe going through it when it’s done

    • @[email protected]
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      49 months ago

      typing is how you get good at typing

      I got good at typing by trying to spam stuff in Diablo 2’s trade channels.

      • CoopaLoopa
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        29 months ago

        Damn, just reminded me how much I used to type while trying to buy/sell stuff in RuneScape.

        Banks were just covered in walls of text before the GE existed.

    • Flying SquidOP
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      -139 months ago

      She will get better at typing by typing other things she has assigned that wouldn’t take her hours to do unnecessarily while also allowing her to do the much more important work of critical thinking on this particular assignments.

      She wouldn’t have learned to save because I wouldn’t have remembered to tell her to.

      She’s in online school. There is no homework. I get involved because, again, I’m her assigned learning coach and it’s my job. I’m not sure what part of:

      something I’m supposed to do as the appointed learning coach by her online school

      Makes you think I shouldn’t get involved.

      • @cosmicrookie
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        9 months ago

        I have no idea what an appointed learning coach is, but I can’t believe that you’re supposed to type in an essay for a 13 year old.

        That said, it’s your child. Do what you see fit. I just don’t understand your approach

        • Flying SquidOP
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          -109 months ago

          I mean… you could have asked me what it was before making any sort of assumptions about what was going on.

          Too late now.

          • @[email protected]
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            229 months ago

            Nah dawg, my 14 year old was expected to type her own essays when she was thirteen and she sucks at typing too, but you know what? She’s now slightly better.

            You’re literally crippling your own child by doing assignments for her

            • Flying SquidOP
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              -189 months ago

              I see.

              Question 1: How is typing what she tells me to type doing the assignment for her?

              Question 2: How bad is your 14-year-old’s ADHD?

              (And before someone says I didn’t say anything about that, no one asked if she wasn’t neurotypical. Which is a very neurotypical thing to assume.)

              • @[email protected]
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                189 months ago

                Lol. You child still needs to learn to do assignments themselves.

                Whether that involves the necessary medication or not is on you.

                • Flying SquidOP
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                  -219 months ago

                  Yep, this is the sort of neurotypical bigotry I’ve come to expect. And obviously I should medicate my child up to the gills so she can achieve your standard of normality.

                  • @[email protected]
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                    189 months ago

                    Dude way to assume.

                    Your child has to learn to survive in the world and you are responsible for that. It’s on you man.

              • @[email protected]
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                99 months ago

                My ADHD was/is pretty bad, but I learned to type just fine. Even learned on a manual typewriter.

                Also lost a 10 page paper in high school because the computer crashed. Rewrote the paper during lunch and study hour because I had to turn it in that day. Learned to save frequently from that experience. Conveniently, deadlines help with ADHD concentration. It’s one of the reasons ADHD people procrastinate. Once the pressure of the deadline gets bad enough we are usually able to focus on the task at hand.

      • @[email protected]
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        9 months ago

        As someone who never learned to type properly as a kid, because I was never pushed to at all: no. No she won’t.

        I love tech, run a home server and am constantly trying out new bits of software and experimenting.

        Can’t type to save my god damn life.

        /edit: fixed my shit spelling from typing errors :(