editing control pages - saving, closing vs. "save and close"

how can i SAVE a control page and keeping the window open for further editing?

in editing control pages, i find i often need to go back to the main indigo window to navigate to view other devices, triggers, schedules, etc. thus, i find it quite inconvenient that the only way to SAVE a control page that i am editing is to use the "save and close" button, which closes the window, then i have to back to the main indigo window, navigate back to the control page i was working on and re-open it . and i have to do that EACH TIME i save. alternatively, if i work for a long time without saving, or i go off to put a device into linking mode or something, then my mac goes to sleep or otherwise disconnects from the server, i lose all my changes.

anyone have any workflow suggestions for editing control pages? i see some folks posting control pages that are orders of magnitude beyond anything i've attempted - i'm guessing they must have some tips or tricks for better productivity...

my impression of editing control page editing is much improved from the "early days" - due to improved support in indigo and because i've simply learned to use it better. for example, the "live preview" function works great and is quite useful. having multiple control pages open at the same time and the ability to cut/paste between them is also hugely useful. so thanks for that!

still, control pages can be rather complex and edits to them can be correspondingly tedious. when making lots of changes to a control page, i want to be able to commit changes i've made when i reach a point where it makes sense, but without closing the window and losing the context.

i would further suggest the use of the most fundamental standard mac UI conventions: command-s for save. and why not a normal close button (or command-w) for closing? ... and i suppose the even newer mac convention these days is that an document-like object that gets created and modified is auto-saved locally, so even if the app or the mac shuts down, the modified state is never lost - i suppose that's another possible way to evolve.

I would vote for an Apply button but in the meanwhile this thread might help?

yes, i suppose "apply" is arguably a better fit to the indigo object-editing paradigm than the document/save mechanism i hinted at - since it is more consistent with how other objects in the indigo universe are created and edited.

otoh, a case could be made that the lifecycle of a control page is more "document-like" than for example, a lamp module, and arguably deserving of different treatment, even at the expense of consistency.

also thanks for the pointer to the other thread. i recently (accidentally) became aware that indigo provides "live" browser previews when editing. that's definitely a nice feature and while it does mean that i don't need to save just to see what my page looks like in the browser, i would still like to be able to commit changes (aka "Save") when i see fit to do so and continue editing.