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[glynor]

I've now, just over the past two or three days, typed up three fairly detailed posts, then got distracted by whatever, came back later, and closed the browser tab accidentally.  Grrrrr!!!

Can we have a drafts feature please?

[6233638]

I generally end up drafting posts locally rather than in my browser these days.

ResophNotes is a Windows port of Notational Velocity, and is great for that sort of thing. (also perfect for syncing via Dropbox to mobile devices if you don't mind storing plaintext on it)

[kstuart]

There are Firefox extensions that auto-save text typed into a text field (Gmail does this automatically).

After 20 years of losing long Forum posts, I've developed a habit of:

Ctrl-A
Ctrl-X
Ctrl-V

every so often, otherwise I would use one of those Firefox extensions.

[6233638]

Well Firefox itself should be saving that without the use of any extensions these days, if you use the undo closed tab feature. (Ctrl+Shift+T)
But sometimes things like that still end up failing, which is why I don't leave it up to my browser any more, if I'm typing up a long post.

[MrC]

This was typed in Firefox and then the browser was closed before Post.  Let's see if it returns....  3...2...1...

I'm back and obviously the text above was saved and restored.

[Hendrik]

Graceful close is one thing, sudden network errors or even browser crashes... thats what kills posts.

[MrC]

It can, for sure.  I've found that going Back after a failed Post almost always restores.  I haven't lost a post in so many years now that I've moved on from calling this a problem.  It is pretty rare, but yes a good Ctrl-C every once in a while is a good safety valve.

[JimH]

If my post is going to be long, I either break it into two posts, or I save it once, then continue again with an edit.

Sometimes I use email as a quick word processor for drafts, then copy and paste when I'm ready.

[InflatableMouse]

+1 glynor. I feel your pain.

I've had it myself quite often, that in the haste of typing I accidently hit the back button or ... something ...

When I remember to do so I use one of the workarounds given above, but when in the middle of typing something you don't always think about it. But really, no one would use a Notepad without a save function and copy/paste it to another program to save it there.

Adding the drafts feature is really the proper way to go about this and its really quite simple to add.

[Hendrik]

Funny enough, the Drafts mod that Glynor linked is for SMF 2, while JR still runs SMF 1.1

[glynor]

There was one for SMF 1.X too.

It is by the devs of SMF.

[mojave]

Like Firefox, in Google Chrome you can reopen a closed tab (right click tab at top or Ctrl+Shift+T) and your post will be there right up to the last character you just typed. It remembers all closed tabs in a session and still works even if you completely close Chrome (or if it crashes). You can also browse back and then forward again and your post will still be available.

If my post is going to be long, . . .

I thought you were going to say, "then I break it into two sentences."  

[MrC]

I thought you were going to say, "then I break it into two sentences."  

I almost spit out my lunch!

[glynor]

Like Firefox, in Google Chrome you can reopen a closed tab (right click tab at top or Ctrl+Shift+T) and your post will be there right up to the last character you just typed. It remembers all closed tabs in a session and still works even if you completely close Chrome (or if it crashes).

I've found that, with both Firefox and Chrome, this only works if the last instance you closed was the one with the post.

Right now, on my desktop machine, I have 5 browser instances open, and probably 25-30 tabs.  And I'm not even sitting there.  In the particular instances I was mentioning above, I was closing the browsers to do patching in one case (so the machine rebooted) and was in a huge rush in another case (and just had to quit everything).

In most cases, you're right... If I realize immediately what I've done.  My issue is that I'll walk off to do something else, and might not come back to it for a few hours (or want to "resume" the post on a different machine and platform).  Reality isn't so clean, in other words...

In any case, if that plugin isn't flaky (and it seems to be simple and common), it'd be nice, and much simpler and more flexible than all of the suggested workarounds (which I am aware of, but as Inflatable mentioned, that takes forethought).

[Samson]

It's happened to me also in the past.Long posts are now typed up as drafts in OneNote.

On Computer Audiophile forum, you see it periodically "saving" as you type but not sure what that means exactly.

[6233638]

On Computer Audiophile forum, you see it periodically "saving" as you type but not sure what that means exactly.

All I know is that whatever Computer Audiophile is doing, doesn't seem to work for me. I constantly lose posts over there, because whatever they do breaks Firefox's "save" functionality.

[InflatableMouse]

So, why not implement this? It's quite easy and would make a lot of folks happy. 

[JimH]

So, why not implement this? It's quite easy and would make a lot of folks happy.  

We're busy doing other easy things to make other folks happy.

We're trying to teach an octopus to type.  It's not going very well.

[Samson]

We're busy doing other easy things to make other folks happy.

and we look forward to MC19, thank you

We're trying to teach an octopus to type.  It's not going very well.

Jim, it's the little sucker things that get [edit-caught]up on the keys ! Voice activated software solves this but then the catch is you gotta teach the octopus to speak ;-)
Regards
David

[InflatableMouse]

Octopuses are psychic so you can stop that and have time for "other things" 

http://filmyfair.com/bollywood-news/paul-the-octopus-predicts-spain-to-win-fifa-world-cup-final-2010-video/