I’ve been using the Foxit PDF Writer that comes with the Foxit Reader for years. In the last couple of weeks, I noticed that it started adding a number to the end of the file name when I selected an existing file. Prior to that, it would offer the standard “Replace existing?” type of prompt. When I went into the Preferences for the Printer, it has only two file-handling options: “Overwrite existing file” and “Add a numeric suffix.” I’m not sure how this was changed to the suffix option, but when I changed to the overwrite option, it simply overwrote any file that happened to exist, without any warning whatsoever.
I’ve been communicating with Foxit support, but they seem to be puzzled that I’m even asking this question. That is, they seem to think that overwriting an existing file without alerting the user with a confirmation dialog is desirable behavior. Well, there might be situations where this is true, but not if that is the only option offered. After all, it is extremely easy to accidentally click on a file name while trying to navigate folders. The other option of automatically adding a suffix is obviously not desirable if you wanted to replace the file.
Has anyone else run into this? Why would an interface designer think that a “replace after confirmation” option is not the proper default for a potentially destructive command (and at least make that a choice)?
