Surely, I'm missing something. But, I can't find a way to effect automatic file backups. Seems it only does one, with a "~".

I want every time I exit PhpED I want it to automatically make a backup with a number attached, so I can retrieve a file from, say 4 versions back.

e.g....

miniRegDB.inc.php
miniRegDB.inc.php.backup12
miniRegDB.inc.php.backup11
miniRegDB.inc.php.backup10
miniRegDB.inc.php.backup9
etc....

I thought phpEd would do this....

Possibly it is better to use a version control system, so you get snapshots of the whole development rather than lots of individual files that may also end up being accidentally deployed to a live site?

PhpED itself directly supports a version control system called CVS but I prefer to use Git and I get along just fine without that being integrated into PhpED, although I believe you can integrate it yourself by adjusting the file menus.

Have a look SmartGit http://www.syntevo.com/smartgit/

Using these sorts of tools, not only do you get historic copies of your site, you also get the ability to compare between versions to see what's changed, do fix-ups, etc.