Automatically Save Draft (Merged)

System

This discussion was created from comments split from: Admin of posts in ongoing correspondence.

Telegraph_Sam

Is there a way of asking the moderators to make it possible, when in the middle of composing a post, to flick back temporarily to a previous post for reference, but not loose the text of the original unsent post? It is easy to forget to click on "Save Draft" in the heat of the moment.

eskbanker

Telegraph_Sam said:

Is there a way of asking the moderators to make it possible, when in the middle of composing a post, to flick back temporarily to a previous post for reference, but not loose the text of the original unsent post? It is easy to forget to click on "Save Draft" in the heat of the moment.

A workaround that I find viable is to open another browser tab or window, within which to review other content, rather than exiting from the editing window, but info about how to communicate with forum admins was on the previous page.

If memory serves correctly, there was some sort of autosave facility introduced as part of an upgrade a couple of years ago and it wasn't a success.

Telegraph_Sam

Depends on having your wits about you when composing a post - when instinct tells you otherwise ! "Save Draft" should be made default before the text is lost

eskbanker

Out of curiosity, I just went looking for references to the earlier incarnation of this and it was clearly unpopular, although perhaps down to flawed implementation rather than the concept itself:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6409595/why-can-039-t-i-erase-unwanted-replies-before-posting

but it does have fans too (point 3):

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/80199233/#Comment_80199233

MSE_Stephen

Hi everyone,

We do indeed have an 'Automatically Save Drafts' setting available. 

From memory, we turned this off because it was annoying for many members.

The current editor can have the issue of the cursor getting 'stuck' when you quote a post: You can't get the cursor to type text below the quote, and the editor refuses to create your post because it thinks you haven't added any new text. So it's preferrable that you can blank the editor by navigating away rather than there being an automatic draft.

As we're moving to a new editor soon, this is something we can look at re-enabling since the new editor won't have that issue. 

ColdIron

In Firefox there is a 'Duplicate Tab' option if you right click on the tab. It makes it easy to review previous content, perhaps there is an equivalent in other browsers

eskbanker

ColdIron said:

In Firefox there is a 'Duplicate Tab' option if you right click on the tab. It makes it easy to review previous content, perhaps there is an equivalent in other browsers

Just found that on Chrome too.

MSE_Stephen

eskbanker said:

ColdIron said:

In Firefox there is a 'Duplicate Tab' option if you right click on the tab. It makes it easy to review previous content, perhaps there is an equivalent in other browsers

Just found that on Chrome too.

For the latest Desktop version of Chrome, there's now the ability to "Open in Split View" (which will be "Right View" or "Left View" if you've already opened it).

So, right-clicking on a page number would be a quick way to open a separate pane showing another parts of the thread:

eskbanker

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81843621#Comment_81843621

Looks like this autosaving of drafts has now been re-enabled as part of the new editor implementation?

Ildhund

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81844710#Comment_81844710

In Edge, the default command for 'duplicate tab' is Ctrl-Shift-K. Interesting that it also reproduces the post I was drafting …