Testing Saved Post Drafts

September 25, 2015 3:57 PM

Last week we discussed saving drafts of posts in case of browser crashes. Today we're testing this out on MetaFilter.

Posting to MetaFilter will work exactly the same way with one addition: each time you click the Preview button, the site will save your progress on the server. If you need to stop in the middle of crafting a post, you can hit Preview and the draft will be saved. If you close your browser before you click Post and return to the new post page, you'll see something like this:



From there you can choose to continue with your saved draft or remove it and start a new post.

We hope this helps take some of the pain out of browser crashes while posting. You should always be able to get to your last preview point. Drafts should also help folks who start a post in one browser and want to finish it somewhere else.

Please kick the tires and let us know if you run into problems. Once we've had a chance to work out the bugs we'll move this to the other sites.

posted by pb (staff) to Feature Requests at 3:57 PM (39 comments total)

Sounds like a great feature. Thanks!
posted by Drinky Die at 4:04 PM on September 25, 2015 [1 favorite]

GAH! Wonderful. Cannot wait to test this out..
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 4:06 PM on September 25, 2015 [1 favorite]

I'm so happy this exists. I hope it works out. Thanks to the behind the scenes people that make this stuff possible. Your hard work is appreciated.
posted by Fizz at 4:10 PM on September 25, 2015

It doesn't work on my iPad Air, iOS 9.01, Safari, professional white theme.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 4:22 PM on September 25, 2015

This is looks like a great feature. It's still just one draft per user, though, right? So there's no way to, say, work on a post for a specific date or something on one hand, and on the other hand make a post about something quick in the meantime, without copy-pasting the draft and deleting it, making the new post, and then creating the original draft again?

Not that this is strictly necessary, just wondering.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 4:25 PM on September 25, 2015

Wait, you haven't implemented it yet on MetaTalk, have you? Ima try it on the blue.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 4:25 PM on September 25, 2015

Johnny Wallflower, were you testing at MetaFilter (www)?
posted by pb (staff) at 4:25 PM on September 25, 2015

It's still just one draft per user, though, right?

Yep, exactly. It's more of a safety net than a queue.
posted by pb (staff) at 4:26 PM on September 25, 2015 [1 favorite]

It's still just one draft per user, though, right?

Yep. The goal is to take the pain out of drafting on the site when Life And/Or Browser Issues Happen, not to create a broad drafting queue.
posted by cortex (staff) at 4:26 PM on September 25, 2015 [2 favorites]

or what he said
posted by cortex (staff) at 4:27 PM on September 25, 2015 [2 favorites]

photo finish!
posted by pb (staff) at 4:27 PM on September 25, 2015 [2 favorites]

*shakes fist*
posted by cortex (staff) at 4:28 PM on September 25, 2015 [2 favorites]

i too want to know more about these amazing cats
posted by poffin boffin at 4:31 PM on September 25, 2015 [1 favorite]

Just tried on the blue, with and without content blockers. No dice. Will try changing to modern theme.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 4:35 PM on September 25, 2015

Sorry about the trouble. Everything is checking out ok here. Can you let me know what steps you're taking to test so I can try to reproduce the problem?
posted by pb (staff) at 4:37 PM on September 25, 2015

"you have a draft post that was saved in progress: poop"

works fine on linux w firefox.
posted by andrewcooke at 4:40 PM on September 25, 2015 [1 favorite]

Logging out and back in didn't help. Here's what I'm doing:

1. Goto the HUMAN post.

2. Type something in comment field.

3. Hit Preview button, see comment preview (I have Live Preview turned off).

4. Close browser tab.

5. Go back to the page, do not see Continue notice.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 4:44 PM on September 25, 2015

Ahh, thanks for the info. This is for MetaFilter posts not comments. Sorry about the confusion. To test this feature you'd click the New Post link at the top of www.
posted by pb (staff) at 4:45 PM on September 25, 2015

No, I am the one who must apologize for my poor reading comprehension. It works fine.

this would be awesome for comments too
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 4:55 PM on September 25, 2015 [2 favorites]

Working great for me.
posted by carsonb at 4:59 PM on September 25, 2015

Also, thanks!
posted by carsonb at 4:59 PM on September 25, 2015

Thank you very much! I get paranoid about losing data, especially when I'm inputting it on an awkward tablet/phone keyboard, and this is a lot better than toggling between the browser and my text editor.
posted by Rangi at 5:32 PM on September 25, 2015

Hey, nice work pb.
posted by benito.strauss at 5:34 PM on September 25, 2015

Cat post was deleted - spammer.
posted by Chrysostom at 5:40 PM on September 25, 2015

He certainly knew his audience.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 6:03 PM on September 25, 2015 [1 favorite]

I am looking at a cat right now.
posted by rtha at 6:20 PM on September 25, 2015 [2 favorites]

Thanks for making this happen, pb.

And folks using the Markdown for MeFi plugin: please let me know if you run into trouble. It looks like the plugin still works after this change, but if not I'll try to fix it.

Be aware that when you edit a saved draft, you'll always edit it in HTML. So if you start a draft in Markdown, you'll finish it in HTML.
posted by evand at 7:04 PM on September 25, 2015

Cat post was deleted - spammer. scanner.
posted by nubs at 7:36 PM on September 25, 2015 [3 favorites]

Thank you so much!!
posted by ellieBOA at 12:50 AM on September 26, 2015

Professional white background, huh, pb? I figured as much.
posted by Literaryhero at 1:06 AM on September 26, 2015

*huge smacking kisses on both of pb's cheeks*

*shovels more links into FPP*
posted by infini at 3:04 AM on September 26, 2015

DRAFTS! MARKDOWN FOR MEFI! /dreamscomingtrue
posted by snap, crackle and pop at 3:13 AM on September 26, 2015 [1 favorite]

This worked for me!

Thanks pb.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 5:44 AM on September 26, 2015

Haven't tried it yet, but it sounds great. Thanks.
posted by pmurray63 at 11:02 AM on September 26, 2015

Thanks to Wordshore for the reverse-meta.
posted by radwolf76 at 2:10 PM on September 26, 2015 [1 favorite]

This is great, thanks for implementing this feature!

I'm pretty sure I've seen a cat before, but now I'm doubting myself.
posted by SpacemanStix at 4:04 PM on September 26, 2015

Awesome! When this launches, could the button say "Save & Preview" or some variation to indicate the new functionality?
posted by softlord at 8:24 AM on September 28, 2015

We'll think about that, softlord. We're thinking of this more as a background/precautionary feature rather than something you'd need to think about while you're posting. We'll think some ways we can let people know this feature exists.
posted by pb (staff) at 8:29 AM on September 28, 2015

This is awesome! This feature definitely made me feel more comfortable creating an FPP. I just tested and it works great. After creating the content:
- I closed my browser and re-opened it.
- Navigated back to Metafilter.
- Did not need to log back in as I did not clear cookies.
- The draft was available to edit upon clicking "New Post".
- I'm using Firefox on Ubuntu, ABP plugin disabled (naturally).
posted by cynical pinnacle at 3:39 PM on October 11, 2015