Is it plausible to have an optional send file song/theme/sample/instrument/dsp setting’to be over written’ to the recycle bin/trash/bin.
This way everytime we save over the file, we always have the previous versions at hand.
This feature is in a software I began using about 6 months ago, and ever since it has been a godsend.
Everytime I save my file, I swap between two filenames: _01 and _02.
This solves the problem of possible overwrite, but requires some discipline.
Does the “keep xx backups” feature, not do its job as it should?
I have thought many times how great it would be if a xrns could hold multiple verisons of one song.
Trust me you don’t:If the whole archive gets corrupt, you loose everything…
Yes it would suck donkey arse. Though I would like to point out that it has always only been a vague thought (wild fantasy) and I have never wasted as much as a second thinking about how well it would work if something did fuck up.
Anyway (and remember! this is just a fantasy of mine) if computers were reliable, then at least I think it would be a handy system to keep all versions of a song, or why not all kinds of files, within one file so that files related to one program could be sorted in one, maybe two folders instead of thousands.
That would mean I would need to use autosave right?
This time I thought way ahead! 
See I included the other files like the xrni, themes, xrnt, and the others as a way to push this through!
Basically what I’m looking for is dumping the old files into the recycle bins during the save process.
I use do exactly what Botb described but I found it was useless for me to keep those extra files in my songs directory, cuz eventually I would just go and delete them all in one fowl swoop, so I began just saving the file exactly what I first named it, and on some occasions will save an alterate file if i changed some instruments around. this is when it gets confusing though sometimes, so i try my best not to do such things.
@Butka, your idea is a good one, I think that would be something to the extent of ‘global non-destructive editing’.
I already suggested that the Renoise backup contain revisions made with some text + binary diff algorythms. That idea got bashed to hell and back. Now I just don’t care anymore.
it’s back… …and stronger than ever.
Funny… my wild fantasies are about having fun with multiple women… i guess that will remain just a wild fantasy as well 
Well in that case I’m adding my two cents: Multiple revisions in a song file kthx. A diff(it’s a unix tool… google it) of the XML would be easy enough to do, and there are binary diff algorythms out there as well that would work for sample data. In the file menu, there could be “revert to previous revision”. The backups of course would simply be the latest copy of the song… both of which would contain the revisions.
That said, the multiple revisions bit could be optional.
Yes, one thing I’ve learned in the last couple years is, ‘Everything must be optional, even the options’. 
Your statement of course is optional
Sidenote but related, i for one would like to have the option to save to the folder structure, rather than an xrns archive. That way i could commit the whole shebang into SVN and have all the diff and versioning glory i wanted, as well as countless backups and a unified song library.
+1
But if you’re commiting it to SVN, can’t you extract it first? Does SVN do diffs on binary data as well?
Either way… +1