"Saved Edit" Poll

[Gaile Gray.6029]

Forum members have given us a lot of good feedback about our new forums. Thanks a lot for sharing your thoughts! As you've probably noticed, we've been making changes here and there, large and small, and we'll continue to do so in the future.

One frequent piece of feedback is the request for us to somehow change the "Your draft has been saved" messaging. And I couldn't agree with you more that the message can be a bit intrusive or inconvenient, particularly because it pops up right over the text you're currently writing. ;)

I've learned from Vanilla that we are not able to extend the time period between those friendly "Saved edit" messages. Nor will we be able to move the message to a different spot on the page. With those facts in mind, I'd like to ask your opinion about the "saved edit" feature from the choices we have available.

[Donari.5237]

I'm not ready to vote because I need a third option: "Either way is fine, I can work around the popup box and it's sort of nice to have the backup, but I have other ways of not losing drafts." Or tldr "I'm fine with whatever the majority wants."

[Zacchary.6183]

The auto-save feature is kind of annoying. Every time you pause to collect your thoughts, the pop up appears right over what you are typing. And then when you try to click it away you end up having to click multiple times because it's like clicking on a new window.

[AegisRunestone.8672]

Let's remove it then if Vanilla can't help us with the time between "Draft Saved" pop-ups. Especially since we can save our own drafts manually.

[Taelac.7036]

Having also looked for and failed to find a way to delete draft posts, I'm in favor of dropping this feature. There are a variety of browser add-ons or tools that can be used to save drafts for the short term, but currently, draft posts on this forum persist for at least several days, and the only way to get rid of them seems to be to post something.

[Danikat.8537]

I do sometimes find it useful, especially if I'm writing a long post. But I've (mostly) learned to save my work manually when writing elsewhere so I think I could manage with the 'save draft' button on the forum too. And it is really annoying when the banner pops up across what you're writing, especially on my phone where it's right in the middle and spans the whole screen.

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

@Taelac.7036 said:Having also looked for and failed to find a way to delete draft posts,

Go to the gear icon at the top right nav bar, choose "my drafts". As you hover over them, a red x appears in the upper right near the specific draft's preview. Click it, and voila, draft deleted.

[Haishao.6851]

I find hard to believe it cannot be moved or closed automatically.https://docs.vanillaforums.com/developer/framework/inform/

That said, I voted to remove it entirely. We didn't have drafts saving before and it wasn't a problem.

[otto.5684]

Meh, can we get auto save without the message popping?

[TwilightSoul.9048]

Just remove it please, it's super annoying especially when you decided not to post something, then come back to the same thread later and find something you want to reply to and there is still the saved draft you had a while ago because deleting drafts is annoying especially when you didn't even intentionally save them to begin with. I'd honestly prefer a "Save Draft" Button over the auto save feature but I usually write longer posts in a text editor beforehand either way, so I don't really need drafts at all.

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

If Vanilla can't fix this, then let's get rid of it. The pop-ups are far too frequent and they interfere with typing.

(PS I think Vanilla should be embarrassed that they can't do anything about the timing or the location. Every software platform has limitations due to compromises made for the sake of releasing useful code quickly enough, but this seems like one that shouldn't have made it past their first user testing.)

[Silmar Alech.4305]

Cannot vote, because my choice isn't in the list. I found a workaround to remove that message with my adblocker. So I get the benefit of auto-saving my drafts but without the annoying popup. If it were present, I would choose "Keep the auto-save feature in place, but remove the popup message".If I were selfish, I'd vote "Leave the Auto-Save feature in place", because I have a workaround, but if I were the operator of the forum, I'd vote "Remove the Auto-Save feature. I will save my posts manually if I need to do so.", because so many people are annoyed in a not acceptable manner. I really don't understand why Vanilla has such an annoying function in the first place.

[Taelac.7036]

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:

@Taelac.7036 said:Having also looked for and failed to find a way to delete draft posts,

Go to the gear icon at the top right nav bar, choose "my drafts". As you hover over them, a red

x

appears in the upper right near the specific draft's preview. Click it, and voila, draft deleted.

Thank you!

[Danikat.8537]

FYI for anyone who is unclear: Vanilla is the company that built and maintains the forum software.

If they say the edit notification can't be moved or changed there is nothing Gaile or anyone else at Anet can do about it. (Except maybe request that they look into it for the future, like us asking for changes to GW2.)

[Gaile Gray.6029]

I have found this, too, and would prefer not to have to do that cleanup.

@TwilightSoul.9048 said:Just remove it please, it's super annoying especially when you decided not to post something, then come back to the same thread later and find something you want to reply to and there is still the saved draft you had a while ago because deleting drafts is annoying especially when you didn't even intentionally save them to begin with. I'd honestly prefer a "Save Draft" Button over the auto save feature but I usually write longer posts in a text editor beforehand either way, so I don't really need drafts at all.

[Gaile Gray.6029]

We do have a manual "Save Draft" function, which is a nice alternative. I remember frequently reminding myself, on the old forums, to write outside the forum system, because we had so great a chance that the post would disappear. I'm confident that won't happen here, and the combination of a stable platform and a manual save feature works well for me.

@TwilightSoul.9048 said:Just remove it please, it's super annoying especially when you decided not to post something, then come back to the same thread later and find something you want to reply to and there is still the saved draft you had a while ago because deleting drafts is annoying especially when you didn't even intentionally save them to begin with. I'd honestly prefer a "Save Draft" Button over the auto save feature but I usually write longer posts in a text editor beforehand either way, so I don't really need drafts at all.

[Haishao.6851]

@"Gaile Gray.6029" said:We do have a manual "Save Draft" function, which is a nice alternative. I remember frequently reminding myself, on the old forums, to write outside the forum system, because we had so great a chance that the post would disappear. I'm confident that won't happen here, and the combination of a stable platform and a manual save feature works well for me.

Manually saving drafts would be the best of both world imo

[Glacial.9516]

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:

@Taelac.7036 said:Having also looked for and failed to find a way to delete draft posts,

Go to the gear icon at the top right nav bar, choose "my drafts". As you hover over them, a red

x

appears in the upper right near the specific draft's preview. Click it, and voila, draft deleted.

Thank you so much. I had no idea this existed.

Runs off to click 100 or so x's

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

@Silmar Alech.4305 said:Cannot vote, because my choice isn't in the list. I found a workaround to remove that message with my adblocker.

Ooh! Tell us more, I like that as a work-around a lot.

[StinVec.3621]

My Vote: Remove autosave feature (manual 'Save Draft' button is enough for me)

I've customized the forums for my taste (in sig) and have moved the location of the message box out of the way, so it is no longer much of an intrusion for me.

However, the annoying element for me is identifying and removing the auto-saved drafts that are listed along with my manually-saved drafts.In other words, having to search through my manually-saved drafts that I may post at a later time to see which ones are auto-saved drafts I never wanted saved in the first place can be a tad annoying. It isn't always an issue as almost all posts I start I complete, but having to go to my drafts any time I decide against making a post in order to delete the auto-saved version in order to keep my drafts 'tidy' is a bit of a nuisance.

[StinVec.3621]

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:

@Silmar Alech.4305 said:Cannot vote, because my choice isn't in the list. I found a workaround to remove that message with my adblocker.

Ooh! Tell us more, I like that as a work-around a lot.

It is likely the 'Element Picker Mode' of AdBlock and uBlock.

You basically start typing a post so it will trigger the auto-save, then hit the picker icon and click on the draft save pop-up when it is triggered to pick it as what you want to hide. Then save the change. It will likely block all notification pop-ups from being displayed though (like new posts in bookmarked threads).

I don't recall if the draft saved pop-up is a different element from other pop-up notifications or if it is the same element and only its content is different. Can check though if you would like me to.I did check - 'draft saved' and 'new post notification' pop-ups utilize the same element, but the content alters based on the data called. Hiding one will hide all of them.

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

Ha! I just went to look if I had any auto-saved drafts I wasn't aware of, and lo and behold...there's one there, and if I click on it I get the "You don't have permission to do that".

Really think that message should be altered.

[crashburntoo.7431]

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:If Vanilla can't fix this, then let's get rid of it. The pop-ups are far too frequent and they interfere with typing.

(PS I think Vanilla should be embarrassed that they can't do anything about the timing or the location. Every software platform has limitations due to compromises made for the sake of releasing useful code quickly enough, but this seems like one that shouldn't have made it past their first user testing.)

Agreed, I have experience with Vanilla on another Forum. I realize that consulting the masses wouldn't be a standard thing to do before choosing a forum platform, but I wish Anet had done that. The experience on the MHO forums was poor to say the least.

[Neural.1824]

I'm fine with the auto save, I just want the pop-up moved to the corner of the screen.

[Shikigami.4013]

i do not understand the complaints because for me, the popup box does NOT appear right over the post I am writing. I don't know why that is but I can just keep on writing and it does not hinder me at all. It just appeared again as I was writing this, so I could doublecheck. It appeared in the middle of the screen for me, while I was typing my post in the lower half, just under the appearing popup. I could also just write on without the box doing anything before disappearing after a second. it can also easily be blocked by adblockers for anyone who is bothered by it, so why the heck would people ask for the autosave to be removed. Humanity is a mystery to me many times.

Example for adblock plus 2.9.1 with element hiding helper, ublock origin probably works pretty similarhttps://imgur.com/JyAi83e