@bwoogie I agree, it’s not intuitive and we all have habits that are adding to the confusion because by « save project » only people who know… are knowing… lol…
The project is the whole directory
By save project we mean save XML.
It’s not a good terminology though, because there is no file saved that are holding the project entirely. The XML is only the constitution of the module tree and the interface of your project. Files likes images, samples, etc… are not saved, they are just permanently lying in the project directory and there is no "global project file" holding them.
And you’re right, archives are "project’s presets", being autosaved or manually saved.
I don’t know if people out there are using manual preset (archive) save. Except for quickly sketching something, I personally don’t get the point.
The things you should then focus on are saving the project XML, and set the autosave just in case something bad happens. You shouldn’t need to save an archive manually (cmd/ctrl+s) but instead just use cmd/ctrl+Shift+s and you’ll be good.
Everyone has been confused by all those strange naming at one time, and as @d-healey said, the concept of project preset (archive) vs user preset adds another layer of confusion…
Something worth adding, no matter how cautious you are handling your project, nothing will be safer than using git