— D R A F T C O P Y —

February 18, 2013 8:15 AM

Pony request. Essentially re-asking this after a seven year gap: what are the chances of having a draft mode for posts so they can easily be built up or refined at different times and locations?
posted by mazola to Feature Requests at 8:15 AM (46 comments total)

Still very much not on our list of things to do; we totally understand why it comes up, but there's a ton of totally workable client-side solutions for this sort of thing and re-inventing the wheel on Metafilter itself would be a bunch of work to create a less-flexible solution to what's not, really, fundamentally even a problem for the site.
posted by cortex (staff) at 8:18 AM on February 18, 2013

Not to be all grumpycat about this, but the chances are zero. It's reinventing a wheel that exists in many other places on the internet (an online HTML editor) for a thing that, while useful to some individuals, is definitely not a thing that users have been clamoring for adding to this particular place. You're more than welcome to stake out a claim on some space on the wiki if you need an internet scratch pad or use one of the many online HTML editors.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 8:18 AM on February 18, 2013 [6 favorites]

MeFi Cloud™ is available with your MetaFilter® Premium Platinum Plus™ subscription. Just make sure you keep your Cabal membership fees current, and don't forget to spend your entire monthly minimum at the clubhouse snack bar and grill room.
posted by slogger at 8:28 AM on February 18, 2013 [6 favorites]

It doesn't (I think) do html, but if you've got gmail (or yahoo mail, or hotmail, &c) you've already got a scratchpad that saves drafts regularly and is available basically everywhere MeFi is.
posted by gauche at 8:31 AM on February 18, 2013

I construct my posts with Frontpage.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 8:34 AM on February 18, 2013 [3 favorites]

There are browser addons that temporarily save the data that you enter into text boxen.
posted by Foci for Analysis at 8:42 AM on February 18, 2013

Notepad.exe

I would really, really recommend against doing it in Notepad, just because of the (seemingly?) inconsistent way it handles wrapping. I make my longer FPPs in it because I'm too lazy to look into other options (and don't want to install software on my work computer) and it is a pain in the ass to re-format a shitload of linebreaks because of wrapping issues.
posted by griphus at 8:53 AM on February 18, 2013 [2 favorites]

On a related topic, I was considering asking the mods if they would consider re-inventing the wheel. Could we put that on your to-do list?
posted by Curious Artificer at 8:58 AM on February 18, 2013 [4 favorites]

Some people say, "We have a wheel. We do not need to reinvent the wheel".

I say to them: you fools.

Some say, "We have fire. Why do we need to reinvent fire? We already have some. It's right over here. Ouch - I just touched it".

I say to them: you fiery, foolish idiots.

Innovation is the very soul of Americanism, the very quintessence of our United Stateyness.

That's why we should NEVER stop innovating and making our nation stronger, rounder and hotter. And if we have to reinvent the wheel and set the wheel on fire and give it a touchscreen, then fuck it - let's do that. It'll be awesome.

And THAT is why we should delete the "mod" app from MetaFilter once and for all and download quidnunc kid verson 1.3.1, "ice cream quidnunc". quidnunc kid is compatible with iOS and Android and also Amazon Silk. He has added functionality and most of those bugs you told us about are fixed. He no longer steals your personal information and sells it to organised crime gangs in Nigeria. He doesn't even send porn spam to your mother anymore, unless you forget to turn that off in the settings menu. And you can purchase extra in-quidnunc features, which means that you can get immunity from deletions and buy cheat codes to ban other users.

Seriously, you should download and rate quidnunc kid #1, and the next time someone says "Let's not reinvent the wheel" you can show them your 10-inch flaming wheel-tablet and say, "Check THIS out. Ouch. Wait, it's burning my hands. Oh God. Oh God, I'm on fire - I'm burning alive. Oh god help me please, please help me dear God-!!!!!!"

Also, and on an unrelated note, I would like to be the next Pope. Please vote #1 quidnunc kid, when you recover from your injuries.
posted by the quidnunc kid at 9:01 AM on February 18, 2013 [26 favorites]

Not to be all grumpycat about this,

Is this a meme I'm unaware of? I think I'd like it.
posted by RolandOfEld at 9:08 AM on February 18, 2013

quidnunc kid verson 1.3.1 crashes on mongo DB! Please patch quidnunc kid verson 1.3.1! One star!
posted by cjorgensen at 9:09 AM on February 18, 2013 [1 favorite]

Is this a meme I'm unaware of? I think I'd like it.

Grumpy Cat
posted by cjorgensen at 9:09 AM on February 18, 2013 [3 favorites]

It's a bit of a kludge, but if you're OK sharing your post-in-the-making with the (few) other visitors to the Unofficial MeFi wiki, there's a drafts and collaborations page, as discussed on MetaTalk previously.

Otherwise, I'd suggest saving your drafts as a webmail draft message, in plain text.
posted by filthy light thief at 9:10 AM on February 18, 2013

what are the chances of having a draft mode for posts so they can easily be built up or refined at different times and locations?

I save drafts of posts to Dropbox, which is free for up to 2gigs of space, so that posts can be worked from anywhere. On the Mac I use WriteRoom to edit them, though it costs $10 or so. But I use it for other writing because it's so great and and it has App, which syncs with Dropbox. PC wise, I use Notepad++, which is free. It's more of a programmer's tool, but it works fine for basic writing.

What I like about both of them is that they do plain text, which lets concentrate on writing, instead of formatting. YMMV.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 9:18 AM on February 18, 2013

Extending from Dropbox, I've found TextDrop to be a surprisingly useful cloud web editor. It pulls text from your Dropbox folder, and has support for Markdown (among other things). Plus, at $8 a year (when I got it, anyhow), it's quite reasonable.
posted by CrystalDave at 9:26 AM on February 18, 2013 [1 favorite]

Not to be all grumpycat about this,

Is this a meme I'm unaware of? I think I'd like it.

It is a meme, as cjorgenson points out.

What's more, were it not for certain Grumpy Cats hereabouts, you would know more about the Grumpy Cat meme and every other mooded cat meme, as well as fluffy corgis and wobbly giraffes and toothy spiders and the whole rest of the animal kingdom's cute and menacing menagerie, for there would be an entire metafilter subsite to celebrate them.

Instead? We have to rely upon helpful critters such as cjorgenson for our edification.
posted by notyou at 9:28 AM on February 18, 2013

To create posts, I sometimes use a free program called Kompozer for HTML and store the draft on Dropbox. You don't even need Dropbox installed on different machines, just access to the web link.

Using Kompozer (or any other WYSIWYG HTML editor) allows me to see what the post will look like, and then I just copy and paste into Metafilter.
posted by KokuRyu at 9:42 AM on February 18, 2013

you would know more about the Grumpy Cat meme and every other mooded cat

I read this as MoonDad Cat who I am now keeping my eyes peeled for.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 9:53 AM on February 18, 2013 [2 favorites]

Alrighty then, I'll file this as 'not broke/don't fix it'.

But it will still remain my very private, very special pony. It's beautiful!
posted by mazola at 10:02 AM on February 18, 2013

Just this weekend I composed a 38 link post using TextWrangler, and then proofed it in Preview Mode. I did this because I love trying to get all the HTML right by sight, and because I'm a bit of an idiot.
posted by Toekneesan at 10:06 AM on February 18, 2013 [1 favorite]

Set us up the subsite and we can make MoonDad Cat together.
posted by notyou at 10:16 AM on February 18, 2013

I like Notepad++. It's good for the environment.
posted by Ice Cream Socialist at 10:23 AM on February 18, 2013 [2 favorites]

Oh look, Brandon Blatcher already said that. He's right, too.
posted by Ice Cream Socialist at 10:24 AM on February 18, 2013

That's what your blog's preview mode is for. For everything but one-liner posts, I craft a draft in Wordpress, preview it a few times, then paste the HTML into the MeFi text box. I keep the draft about just in case the MeFi post gets the baleet.
posted by scruss at 10:39 AM on February 18, 2013

Grumpycat is A Thing. There is A Website. It is www.GrumpyCats.com.
posted by slogger at 11:02 AM on February 18, 2013

... what are the chances of having a draft mode for posts so they can easily be built up or refined at different times and locations?

I have this already. It is called Notepad.
posted by y2karl at 11:10 AM on February 18, 2013

Ah, I should have read down -- Burhanistan has beat me to it.
posted by y2karl at 11:16 AM on February 18, 2013

Can we reinvent snark? Or is it too early for that?
posted by blue_beetle at 11:16 AM on February 18, 2013

When putting link-heavy posts together, which I almost never do at the moment admittedly, I've used MarsEdit - but that's primarily because I paid for the damned thing, and I feel I should use it for something.
posted by running order squabble fest at 11:31 AM on February 18, 2013

Your timing's perfect, blue_beetle. Go right ahead. It's a great idea.
posted by scruss at 11:35 AM on February 18, 2013

Actually, couldn't this be done with Greasemonkey? I haven't really done any HTML5y things with it, but I assume one could throw things in LocalStorage for later retrieval.
posted by Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug at 11:47 AM on February 18, 2013

I like notepad++ and Google Drive. Been using the Google docs, err, Drive app for the simplest shit lately like shopping lists. I bet GOOG likes that...
posted by lordaych at 1:31 PM on February 18, 2013

I like the Metapad.
posted by laconic skeuomorph at 2:02 PM on February 18, 2013

Because it has "meta" in the name. In case that wasn't oblivious.
posted by laconic skeuomorph at 2:02 PM on February 18, 2013

Oh, very oblivious.

Meta Pad. Also known as Hamburger Helper
posted by y2karl at 2:23 PM on February 18, 2013 [1 favorite]

You can also turn off line breaks in Notepad.
posted by nevercalm at 3:14 PM on February 18, 2013 [1 favorite]

I would really, really recommend against doing it in Notepad, just because of the (seemingly?) inconsistent way it handles wrapping. I make my longer FPPs in it because I'm too lazy to look into other options (and don't want to install software on my work computer) and it is a pain in the ass to re-format a shitload of linebreaks because of wrapping issues.

My experience: Whenever you save a notepad document, it inserts those line-wrapping linebreaks. If you want to copy/paste from a saved txt file, you should first check, and then uncheck, 'wordwrap' under the format menu. This is a lot simpler than manually removing the linebreaks.
posted by wilko at 4:14 PM on February 18, 2013

So if you do it in a text editor, and you save it as .html, you can drag and drop it into your browser window and make sure your HTML code is solid and your links work.
posted by davejay at 7:47 PM on February 18, 2013

the quidnunc kid: "Some people say, "We have a wheel. We do not need to reinvent the wheel"."

Actually from what I understand*, we don't need to either invent nor reinvent the wheel, we just need to be the first to the patent office.

*See Tesla v. Edison, Grey v. Graham Bell
posted by IndigoRain at 10:55 PM on February 18, 2013

I collect potential links for mefi posts on index cards and categorize them using the dewey decimal system (for example, youtube videos of puppies riding on skateboards, I have filed under 599 for 'mammals') . Then when one of the bins gets full, I scan all of them into evernote on my ipad where I start to organize them alphabetically. Once I have enough links collected, I export the whole thing into PDF, cut it up into sentence fragments, glue that to a new piece of paper, and fax that to a readers-for-the-blind service who then leaves it as a voicemail for me in google voice. I use IFTTT to forward that to a cut-rate voicemail transcription service in China who emails the semi-comprehensible engrish to a mechanical turk bot that pays people to turn that into what is hopefully a delightfully surreal and properly formatted front page post.
posted by empath at 1:44 AM on February 19, 2013 [3 favorites]

I wish there was an easier way to compose posts, regardless of whether it's on the MeFi site or not. Specifically, I like including lots of links, but sometimes the process of building all those <a href=""></a> tags wears down on me.

Mind you, I don't actually know the best way to do that; I don't think a button for constructing links in a form is the way to do it, because I can type out the link code faster than doing the mouse work to create the link using a UI, but sometimes it gets troublesome keeping up with all the links and whether they work or not.
posted by JHarris at 2:27 AM on February 19, 2013

Don't use Word. Embedded links and smart quotes break everything. Not that I'd know.
posted by Toekneesan at 5:54 AM on February 19, 2013

"Some people say, "We have a wheel. We do not need to reinvent the wheel"."

And, for the record, this post was not a request to re-invent the wheel but rather to adopt the wheel.

In the seven years since the last request I would imagine a chunk of users have become used to cloud services and I was wondering if that experience may have coloured their expectations of this site.

Apparently not and that's groovy. Peace out.
posted by mazola at 6:30 AM on February 19, 2013

And, for the record, this post was not a request to re-invent the wheel but rather to adopt the wheel.

I looked into Adopt A Wheel and they sent me pictures of my wheel, and a little biography. It’s only pennies a day to change a wheels life.
posted by bongo_x at 10:30 AM on February 19, 2013

Is that how it's supposed to work? You actually give them money?

There is a young, needy wheel somewhere that's probably kind of confused about me airmailing him a cup of coffee every day.
posted by cortex (staff) at 10:37 AM on February 19, 2013

All you folks who have trouble with Notepad's soft (word wrap) line breaks being pasted as hard line breaks: as far as I know, the only browser that pastes them that way is Internet Explorer. In any other browser (except perhaps Maxthon, which is just IE in lipstick), pasting Notepad text into a browser text box does the right thing whether you remembered to turn off word wrapping in Notepad before copying the text or not.

Seriously, just install a proper browser. IE is for squids.
posted by flabdablet at 8:28 AM on February 20, 2013