Re: Drafts
Reply #1 –
To me Drafts are how you explained it Bloc, but I also see the purpose of caching.
I for one have unstable internet because too many people in my household use it all at once. Nothing pisses me off more when I'm at a site and I click post, then internet drops, and I just lost everything I wrote. Elkarte/Wedge idea of "drafts" deal with this issue well. However, like you said, it's a form of caching to me, not actually a draft.
Drafting is when writing a long post such as a Blog post or Article, that requires more research or time to finish. Those should be posts that can be "saved as draft", like on WP or Blogger. However, cached posts should be auto-removed after X amount of days. I know Blogger uses both of these, post caching and drafts together.
I think that's how it should be. Cached along with the ability to save as a Draft. With a draft being unviewable by anyone else until "published", and cached posts being removed after X days or so automatically.
I can see the term "Draft" with Elkarte being misleading to mostly Bloggers. I would much prefer the term being changed to "cached".
Re: Drafts
Reply #2 –
Caching is way too ambiguous to me. Caching means only for a limited time. In other words, something I don't control. A post that could be cached, and then suddenly it's gone without me knowing.
A draft can be auto-saved and left (if you don't submit) automatically. That's exactly what a draft is to me. Something I've started, but haven't finished. Hence, the "Save Draft" button.
Re: Drafts
Reply #3 –
In theory, when you are writing a message and it is "autosaved", if a draft for that same message already exists (i.e. after the first save) the existing one is updated, so in theory no half-made posts (unless you stopped writing it) should be around.
In both Elk and 2.1 there are settings to disable the autosave, that would mostly look like what you have in mind, though I seem to remember that also wordpress has an auto-save draft option that should work more or less like that one.
In forums and in particular in SMF the "failsafe" version of drafts was quite necessary at SMF 2.0 stage because of the fatal failures for certain errors (e.g. bad attachments, or session, etc.).
In 2.1 and even more in ElkArte, the autosaving of drafts is not terribly important, because most of the errors are dealt in other ways (at least the most annoying that is/was attachments, in 2.1 the post is made and then you get an error, while in Elk you are just sent back nicely to the post page).
Re: Drafts
Reply #4 –
Then drafts should be auto-deleted after X amount of days to save on resources. Just an idea...
Re: Drafts
Reply #6 –
Bloc, Wedge has topic privacy. In theory you can create a topic only viewable by you, then set it to public once ready. It works if you don't mind having your post 'dated' from when you started it. Or having to recreate a new topic with the proper public date.
Of course you can also save your topic as a draft. Then you have 15 days to finish it iirc. Then you can publish it.
Elk seems to have a save draft button. I suppose it works on new topics, too...