Suggestion: easy way to restore wallet.dat backup

I posted this on bitcoin-user, but nobody replied, so I'm trying here.

	Today, when a user uses bitcoin-qt client, it can make a backup
of wallet.dat easily through menu, but when he/she needs to restore
this backup, he/she must copy the file to the correct folder and
execute "bitcoin-qt -rescan".

	My suggestion: bitcoin-qt developers could implement an easier
way to restore. For example: a option in the File menu "Restore Wallet"
or "Recover Wallet" where it would show a dialog asking for the backup
file and everything would be done automatically (no need to do it
manually).

	If we want everybody to use bitcoin, these operations should
be as easy as possible.

	What do you think?

On Tue, Dec 3, 2013 at 11:59 AM, Dâniel Fraga <fragabr@gmail•com> wrote:

>
>         Today, when a user uses bitcoin-qt client, it can make a backup
> of wallet.dat easily through menu, but when he/she needs to restore
> this backup, he/she must copy the file to the correct folder and
> execute "bitcoin-qt -rescan".
>

I actually think this is part of a larger and somewhat subtle UX problem with bitcoin-qt – and, to be totally fair, a whole bunch of other wallet programs.

I think the issue is that bitcoin-qt should have a document-oriented approach to wallets. It should make you select a location to store your wallet, just like a word processor, when you create a new wallet. It could open the most recent wallet when you run the program, or allow you to open a wallet by double-clicking it directly in the OS.

I think this would solve this particular issue nicely, just double click the wallet file. Also, the menu item can just be labeled "Open Wallet". It might also prevent those kind of heartbreaking posts which read something like, "I just wiped my hard drive and reinstalled bitcoin-qt, where are my coins?" People don't have the expectation that if they get Word on a new PC that their documents will somehow magically be available, I think in part because Word forces you to deal with the documents and the save location yourself.

I know that this would bring with it a host of other considerations: Can multiple wallets be open at the same time? What happens if a wallet file is moved while it's open? What happens when there are two versions of the same wallet? Will users understand that they need to backup their wallets periodically?

But, I think it would be a big enough usability win that it should be considered. Also, if at the same time bitcoin-qt were to adopt BIP 32 style deterministically derived private keys from a single seed, a bunch of the issues above would also go away: There are never two versions of the same wallet, since they're the same seed, and periodic backups are unnecessary.