If a system crash, network failure, X server crash, or program error should happen while you are editing a file, you can still recover most of your work. XNEdit maintains a backup file which it updates periodically (every 8 editing operations or 80 characters typed). This file has the same name as the file that you are editing, but with the character `~' (tilde) on Unix or `_' (underscore) on VMS prefixed to the name. To recover a file after a crash, simply rename the file to remove the tilde or underscore character, replacing the older version of the file. (Because several of the Unix shells consider the tilde to be a special character, you may have to prefix the character with a `\' (backslash) when you move or delete an XNEdit backup file.)
Example, to recover the file called "help.c" on Unix type the command:
mv \~help.c help.c
A minor caveat, is that if the file you were editing was in MS DOS format, the backup file will be in Unix format, and you will need to open the backup file in XNEdit and change the file format back to MS DOS via the Save As... dialog (or use the Unix unix2dos command outside of XNEdit).