[wp-hackers] Autosave

[Robert Deaton]

On 1/2/06, Roy Schestowitz <r at schestowitz.com> wrote:
> In principle, you could also make use of the memory (e.g. the clipboard). As
> Amit pointed out, any attempts to write to disk should be avoided. JavaScript
> does not permit this and it would be the bad choice on alien computers.

That is by far, the silliest idea I have heard for autosaving yet. We
should not be overwriting what a user has in their clipboard, this
does not scale cross platform (hell, Firefox won't even allow it).
This does not solve the problem of computers crashing,

> I can't say I agree. Users expect that message to come up. They know they have
> lost work, so assuming a crash can be detected, a prompt would be a top
> priority. Office suites do it and also a LaTeX editor that I use. It is
> relieving to see that prompt rather than having to explore.

Users who have lost work will know what to look for when its lost. A
draft with the same name as the post they were writing is notification
enough that hey, your draft was saved. We are not an office suite, we
are not a LaTeX editor, we are a webbased application, prompting is an
annoyance.

On 1/2/06, Andy Skelton <skeltoac at gmail.com> wrote:
> I considered this but it runs up against the issue of the needlessly
> autoincremented post ID. Plenty of people rally against this effect
> whenever it occurs.

I'm not suggesting we insert a new row for every save, but rather the
initial autosave creates a draft, that draft can be converted to
published or whatever it need be when the user finally publishes, the
draft shows alongside other drafts when you visit the write screen. It
wouldn't really run IDs up higher than someone who writes drafts would
anyways. Potentially complicated, but I like it more than a single
save slot that could easily be unknowingly overwritten, perhaps by
someone working on two posts at the same time, or someone who takes
too long to click the link to the recovered draft on the post page,
and accidentally overwrites it with nothing (although, this could be
addressed in other ways).

--
--Robert Deaton
http://somethingunpredictable.com