Draft-saving feature suggestion/feasability

[Trane]

Dears,

Would it be possible to have a "draft post saving" feature?

Our membership often writes publish long and thoughtful posts that may not come out right in the first writing seance, and sometimes cannot finish it in a single seating (either lack of time, emergency or still thinking about the topic while writing it up). I've had to resort to saving up unfinished posts on a word document to bring it back later.

In some french forums I frequent, it is possible some save an unfinished post in the bottom or upper bar of the post window in a click button next to the Submit, Preview, Advanced or Cancel buttons. This text is then automatically is saved under the thread as a draft. This draft can be recalled by pressing a "charge draft" click button and be finalized. This can be repeated a few times as wel, before finally being confident enough to post it.

cheers & thx for looking into it.

[markwoll]

It has saved a draft for a long time. It looks like it auto saves every minute. There's a yellow notification on the right side of the quick reply
If you abandon the post and go back to the thread it asks if you want to use the draft. There is a button in the lower left corner of the quick reply that says "Restore Auto-Saved Content". I tried it several times on this post and it worked every time.

I don't use it much, but it's handy. I usually use a text editor to compose a lengthy reply, especially if I have to do research.

[Trane]

Wll I was drafting a big post on the Crimson multiple drummer line-up, and I don't know how I managed to lose my relatively long post (I'm always amazed how I create these exploits, but still don't know HOW I manage them), but it's lost.wall.gif

Not sure if I would've saved it as a temporary draft (at least saving some of it), but when I do so (long posts) on those French forums , I do so and can return the day after.

On ProgArchives, I've usually learned to copy/paste my texts, because its chronic instability and doesn't always recognize your right/access to post, which didn't stop me to lose a post about Chinese film industry.wall.gif

[markwoll]

That is interesting. I tried just now to type some stuff as a reply here and then just closed the browser, I use Firefox. When I restarted Firefox and came back to progressive ears and to this thread I was prompted to restore auto saved content. I looked through the settings and did not find anything I could toggle off or on for auto saved content.
I did change to the basic text editor from standard just now and that did not make a difference.
I think I will try with more text and see if there is a limit.
So I added several pages of text and closed Firefox. The first time I did I got a prompt telling me I had unsaved work and did I want to stay on the page or leave. I clicked remain and a few seconds later I saw the autosave notice in the lower right and then I closed firefox and saw no prompt.
When I restarted firefox and went back to this thread the restore prompt was there and it brought back all of the text. I removed that extra stuff. and killed Firefox again.
Came back and restored the saved content.
It is strange that it wouldn't work for you.

[Duncan Glenday]

Sorry I just now saw this thread.

Sadly, no, we can't do what Trane requested.

We needed to improve on what we had in the old PEv2 system in terms of security, system reliability, and to avoid being 100% dependent on 1 technical support person. So 12 years ago we purchased a piece of software for PEv3 that has a specific set of features. Some were better than what Lee developed back in the day, but we also ha to lose some of the features that Lee (and later, I) developed.

For long posts, I ALWAYS write them in a notepad or or a word processor, and when I'm happy with the text, I just copy/paste into PE - which takes just 2 keystrokes.