When using CrossClave to sync your files you may have noticed in the header of the file a name you didn't necessarily give it. Likely it was something like '(red copy)' followed by the actual filename.
Worry not! This is a feature we added with the New File Experience in CrossClave to better differentiate different 'lineages' of a file. The first color will always be red, and likely for most files this will be the only color copy you ever see. Simply opening and working on the latest version of a file at all times will mean that you're always going to be getting the red copy lineage of the file and the red copy will always be the latest version.
In the below image you can see that there is only a single color copy of the file on your local system. The color copy is tied to a specific version of CrossClave which is referenced in the date-line.
In this instance we can see the red copy was generated from the third version of this particular file ('Version 3') and we can further see that version 3 is the 'current' version of this particular file. This means that by default any user downloading this file from the top-view will be getting the red copy of this file. Conceptually this progressive versioning would look like this (the white dot denoting the 'Current' version):
But what happens if you open an older version of the file, such as version 2? A case where this would happen would be if you had saved a version that you no longer wanted or perhaps decided the version was no longer any good. Doing that splits off a new branch of the file line and gives that new branch a color ('blue copy').
The new color copy will reference the parent version in the version history for the file for clarity and generate a new line of files.
As you can see the new 'blue copy' references the version that it was generated from (version 2). Bear in mind that even though you've created this new branch, it will not be the new default download from the top view until that version becomes the 'Current' version (as referenced in the Version History section). Conceptually this file lineage looks like this:
As you can see the act of opening the older version of the file is what generates the new branch of color copies, but the most 'Current' version of the file is still the 'red copy' until you make changes and save this older version. At that point the 'blue copy' would become the 'Current' version of the file and you would also need to resolve the file conflict that doing this creates. This article goes into how to resolve file conflicts:
Regardless, in the instance you select to keep the 'blue copy' as the 'Current' version CrossClave will make it the default download for users. Conceptually the file lineage would then look like this (where the white dot is the 'Current' version):
Generally you will have to deal with color copies more when you have multiple users in a space and they access the file at the same time. Color copies exist in order to assist with resolving file conflicts. For example if you have two file branches that have been saved but you'd like to combine them, you can open both versions up and see which is which thanks to the color copy naming convention.
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