What is autosave?

[Bill Wyko]

I just spent a long time on a reply to someone building some speakers. Then the system kicked me out and said SMC is not responding. This has happened before, the system thinks you are not there so it makes you re enter your log in and you loose everything you write. This is quite upsetting, I'm not going to go back and do it all over again if it's gone.

[Larry Browning]

If this has happened to you more than once, you might consider writing your responses in a word processor and then copying and pasting into the reply box. I do this sometimes when I am writing a particularly long post. I know that does not help you now, but you might consider it for the future. I know how frustrating this can be.

[Curt Harms]

If this has happened to you more than once, you might consider writing your responses in a word processor and then copying and pasting into the reply box. I do this sometimes when I am writing a particularly long post. I know that does not help you now, but you might consider it for the future. I know how frustrating this can be.

Oh yeah, been there. I use a simple text editor, it doesn't add any extraneous crap. I guess I could use a word processor and save as a .txt file but I usually forget the .txt part.

[Larry Browning]

Oh yeah, been there. I use a simple text editor, it doesn't add any extraneous crap. I guess I could use a word processor and save as a .txt file but I usually forget the .txt part.
I normally don't actually save my post, I just write it there, copy and paste into the editor window, then close the WP without saving.

[David C. Roseman]

Bill Wyko wrote:

What is autosave?
Good question, Bill. It may be posted somewhere, but I just did a search on SMC for the term and found nothing that explains how it works. Maybe one of the moderators can point us to it. The time-out feature is wise, I'm sure, but can be frustrating when it happens while trying to write something. Composing in a text editor or Word works well, but involves extra steps.

David

[Myk Rian]

Strange that the vBulletin website doesn't describe autosave.

[Thomas Bank]

When I first started seeing the autosave box pop up a few months ago, I played around with things. I found that if you're typing something and leave the page (for whatever reason), if you go back to the thread and hit reply again, the text box that comes up has a "restore autosaved content" button down in the lower left corner.

I haven't experimented with this much to see how well it works - for example, if someone else posts a comment before you have come back and tried again or how long the autosave works - come back immediately vs. coming back in half an hour, a couple hours, or a day later.

Initially, I was looking under settings or my profile for "restore draft" or "restore saved content." I found the button in the reply window entirely by accident.