Auto saving drafts

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bubbasour
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Joined: Thu Jul 26, 2018 10:28 am

Auto saving drafts

Post by bubbasour »

Is there any function to auto save draft as you type a post? It's not great that my post that I spent 30mins typing disappeared when I pressed preview and got routed to a login prompt.
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avenger
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Re: Auto saving drafts

Post by avenger »

Some choose to write their post in another program such as word, notes. Then copy and paste the post into the browser.
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dratkinson
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Re: Auto saving drafts

Post by dratkinson »

avenger wrote: Thu Dec 31, 2020 5:12 am Some choose to write their post in another program such as word, notes. Then copy and paste the post into the browser.
+1 Learned my lesson. I write it here, but copy (Ctrl-A, Ctrl-C)/paste (Ctrl-A, Ctrl-V) into Word before I preview. That way, if the worst happens, I resume from Word. (An additional CYA step: could save Word doc into a temp directory before I preview.)
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Cheez-It Guy
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Re: Auto saving drafts

Post by Cheez-It Guy »

Or for lengthy posts, just make a habit of selecting all and copying before clicking submit and being shuttled into the unknown. I try to do this on all time-consuming web forms, including with Vanguard secure messages where there used to be a timeout problem (that has been fixed). It's just a good safeguard, and takes virtually no time.
runner3081
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Re: Auto saving drafts

Post by runner3081 »

avenger wrote: Thu Dec 31, 2020 5:12 am Some choose to write their post in another program such as word, notes. Then copy and paste the post into the browser.
Yes, this!

I learned the hard way working on my MBA and losing lengthy online-learnings posts at times!
livesoft
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Re: Auto saving drafts

Post by livesoft »

As mentioned, keyboard shortcuts are your friend. Particularly, the select-all and copy shortcuts. Another program might be useful if you are posting something that takes days to write, but that should be relatively rare. If you are spending less than 30 minutes on a post, then the select-all, copy should be enough as you should probably shorten your post if it takes longer than 30 minutes. Besides, posts can be edited after they appear.

Did you notice that I edited this post already 3 times?
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fsrph
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Re: Auto saving drafts

Post by fsrph »

On a longer post, I write it in my email program which auto saves the draft.

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grabiner
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Re: Auto saving drafts

Post by grabiner »

livesoft wrote: Thu Dec 31, 2020 8:32 am As mentioned, keyboard shortcuts are your friend. Particularly, the select-all and copy shortcuts. Another program might be useful if you are posting something that takes days to write, but that should be relatively rare. If you are spending less than 30 minutes on a post, then the select-all, copy should be enough as you should probably shorten your post if it takes longer than 30 minutes. Besides, posts can be edited after they appear.

Did you notice that I edited this post already 3 times?
Since it was the last post in the topic there is no indication that you edited it. I frequently do this when I make a post and then find a typo or realize that I should add something.

If you edit a post that is not the last post, there will be an indication. When I do that, I normally include a note such as "edited to fix typo; thanks livesoft" (if someone else caught the typo in a later post) or "edited to correct tax rate" (so that readers will know that the tax information in the earlier post might be wrong).

When I make a long post, I normally compose it in a text editor (Emacs is my choice), since that both makes editing easier and allows me to save drafts.
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