Implemented Autosave post drafts

[Shamil]

How many times have you had the misfortune of navigating out from a page where you were previously writing a long-ish post and had to start again?

Would it help you if your post was saved at intervals as a draft?

 

[jmurrayhead]

Having seen this implemented on WP, I have to disagree with this one. There's really no need for this. I wouldn't say it's 'resource intensive', but it can be annoying to deal with. I actually had to find a plugin to disable this for my WP blogs simply because I got tired of page refreshes interrupting my posts.

If the page refreshes like that, then that is just a really bad implementation. It can all be handled via AJAX without the page having to refresh.

 

[Shamil]

Having seen this implemented on WP, I have to disagree with this one. There's really no need for this. I wouldn't say it's 'resource intensive', but it can be annoying to deal with. I actually had to find a plugin to disable this for my WP blogs simply because I got tired of page refreshes interrupting my posts.

Doesn't WP use AJAX to cover this though? If not, then that is seriously crappy implementation.

 

[twhiting9275]

Doesn't WP use AJAX to cover this though?

I'm really not 100% sure HOW they do this, but the way they do this, it's annoying when trying to draw up larger posts, because it simply 'refreshes' somehow. I haven't tried again in 3.0, but prior versions had this incredibly annoying feature that you had to have a custom plugin to disable.

 

[Shamil]

I'm really not 100% sure HOW they do this, but the way they do this, it's annoying when trying to draw up larger posts, because it simply 'refreshes' somehow. I haven't tried again in 3.0, but prior versions had this incredibly annoying feature that you had to have a custom plugin to disable.

I haven't noticed it refresh, and I've been writing a blog post for the past 20 mins with loads of pictures in it. I really cannot recall the pre-3.x series.

 

[Forsaken]

WP does it in the background, and only alerts you that there was a draft saved if I remember correctly.

 

[Jeffin]

Wouldn't we be able to code in a way the page refreshed only if choose to post via 'more options'? I think save as draft gmail style is an amazing idea, something my members would love. A lot of them a long post writers.

 

[Ozman]

Dean said: this feature is a long waited in vbulletin suggestion forum. never implemented although the blog system has it.​

Yes, blog has it in vBulletin, but once you post a blog then you cannot change even one letter, nor delete it. V. annoying, but hardly surprising!

I really DON'T care how "Save Post" is implemented - just so long as it IS. As with vBulletin, it's clear that people WANT it, so are we going to get it! Here's hoping...

Ozman

 

[Peter]

Like like like!!! It has saved me more than a handful of times when writing large blog posts so it'll be useful for xenforo as well.

WP does it in the background, and only alerts you that there was a draft saved if I remember correctly.

It will show a message if you revisit/edit a post that may have a previously saved version conflict.

 

[Dean]

Dean said: this feature is a long waited in vbulletin suggestion forum. never implemented although the blog system has it.​

I am not clear what is going on. I don't see where I typed that in this thread, and I those words are uncharacteristic of me.

?

 

[Ozman]

I am not clear what is going on. I don't see where I typed that in this thread, and I those words are uncharacteristic of me.

?

My sincere apologies, Dean. I couldn't get "Quote" to work properly at all, so ended up typing it in by hand. By that stage I'd obviously mixed you up with someone else. Sorry about that!

Ozman

 

[Null]

Yeah I suggested making use of LS though there needs to be a cookie-based fallback for incompatible browsers.

Hm. I think if somebody doesn't have a browser that doesn't support HTML5 or a browser that partially supports HTML5 (no local storage) then the draft feature should just not work for them, I don't really think developers should keep trying to 'look after' old technology, it creates bloat and doesn't really encourage or 'push' use of web standards.

Recent versions of browsers support localStorage [Internet Explorer (8+), Mozilla's Firefox (3.6+), Opera (10.5) and Chrome (4+)].

 

[Grover]

Yes, I fully support this. Sometimes my members loose their typed-in-text because they experience a server hickup when they press [Post]. I am known to have the tendency ... to write extensive amounts of text and I am always using Notepad next to my browser screen to manually save (copy and paste...) my contents when writing. An auto-save feature would solve all these problems once and for all.

 

[Jeffin]

If this is coming, it needs to be nicely implemented so we are not interrupted every time it auto-saves as we type. Definitely something I looking forward to. I don't think any other forum solutions have this feature. xF will be the first if we get it.

I googled some for other forums on this topic:
http://trainspotter.vanillaforums.org/discussion/6912/save-draft-comments-with-configurable-autosave
http://area51.phpbb.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=108&t=34419

 

[Rigel Kentaurus]

How many times have you had the misfortune of navigating out from a page where you were previously writing a long-ish post and had to start again?

Would it help you if your post was saved at intervals as a draft?

Liked.
These days this could even be done client-side with localstorage

 

[Grover]

Yes, I fully support this. Sometimes my members loose their typed-in-text because they experience a server hickup when they press [Post]. I am known to have the tendency ... to write extensive amounts of text and I am always using Notepad next to my browser screen to manually save (copy and paste...) my contents when writing. An auto-save feature would solve all these problems once and for all.

Aargh ... I have just experience this exact same thing for the 5th time here on XenForo. Using Chrome I -again- pressed somehow a button on my keyboard that transported me to another browser screen, making me loose the contents I had just typed. Notepad I didn't use. Damn. Maybe not essential functionality by all means, but an auto-save feature would have definitely be welcomed in situations like these...

 

[dieketzer]

in the absence of an auto-saving draft, i recommend the lazarus plug-in for firefox.
im sure there is a similar alternative for chrome.

 

[Shamil]

I think this should be implemented soon. Someone as IPS must have seen this, and it's coming in the next major update.

 

[Onimua]

I think this should be implemented soon. Someone as IPS must have seen this, and it's coming in the next major update.

It's not a new idea. I remember seeing that suggestion there before a while back to, as well as over at vB. It's definitely something that's been suggested for a variety of forum software.

 

[Ajaxboy]

definitely +

 

[ibnesayeed]

In my opinion, HTML5 LocalStorage should be used for this purpose. Even if we don't have fallback cookie option, majority will enjoy the feature as LS is implemented in many modern browsers.