New Posting Features - Message auto-save/drafts

An auto-save feature was recently added to vB4, so I figured it would be nice if we vB3 users could also get something similar

While this this isn't a server-side solution, I think that it's still pretty solid, as it relies on the localStorage system in your browser, which is supported by Safari, FF 3.5+, Opera, Chrome, and IE8+.

I have tested this on FF6, the latest Safari and Chrome, and IE9. I wrote it with IE8 in mind, but haven't tested IE8 as my forum skin doesn't support it (yup, it's a terrible browser).

For now, I am marking this as a beta release until we're sure it works in all browsers that support localStorage and there aren't any outstanding bugs.

Where does this work?

• Quick reply
• New reply/New thread
• PM quick reply
• New PM
• PM regular reply
• Anywhere else you want, given that the page contains a form named "vbform" and a textarea named "message" (or the vbulletin wysiwyg editor)

How does this work?
You can start typing a post, close your browser, open the same page, and the post will still be there. Note that this mod keys data by URL in order to avoid collisions.

The mod automatically and silently restores posts when possible. However, if the editor already contains something when you load the page (i.e. PM quick reply), then you will receive a prompt asking you whether or not you want to work with the recovered text.

This mod works even if you disable the WYSIWYG editor and it will quite likely work with older versions of vB all the way down to 3.5.

Installation
Installation is simple.

1. [1]Download the attached file (or download the file directly and skip step 2)
   [2]Change the extension to .js from .js.txt
   [3]Upload it to your forum's clientscript directory
   [4]Add the following code to the bottom of your forum templates* wherever you want this mod to work:

<script type="text/javascript" src="$vboptions[bburl]/clientscript/vbulletin_autosave.js"></script>

If you don't care about http overhead, you can put this code in your footer template as it will die gracefully on pages without an editor. However, I recommend only putting it in templates that use it. On my forum, I've added it to the following templates: SHOWTHREAD, newreply, newthread, pm_showpm, pm_newpm On top of that, if you don't allow guests to post, wrap the code in a member-only conditional: <if condition="$show['member']">...</if>

*the script tags must be placed after the editor text area element; this doesn't necessarily have to be the very end of the template, although it's good practice to do so

License:
You are free to use, modify, re-post and re-distribute the code as long as you credit me in the script comments. Improvements and derivatives are welcome!

Note: This is a CLIENT-SIDE mod. Please be sure that any issues you may report aren't related to the fact that a. your browser is misconfigured or b. you are using an old/unsupported browser.

[jrap]

Thanks!

[NAZIA]

but for me, sometime links work, mostly does not work..

in Firefox 6.0.2

[MoMan]

Make sure you're including the JS file on all the pages you want it to work on.

If it's still not working, you can uncomment the console.log statements in the code and trace the execution in firebug. If you find any issues then, let me know how to reproduce them and I'll look in to fixing them!

[NAZIA]

Yes.. i fix it.. that was due to conflicting some ads code .. i have remove the ads now it is working fine.. sorry :S

[drsli]

Thank you for this very useful addon!
The need for it was proved, when I worked on this reply for the first time. Meanwhile I was kicked out by vbulletin.org with my idle-time and after hitting submit the text was gone.

The mod works like a charm with my live-forum. Thus far I could test Firefox and Chrome on MacOSX.
Perhaps I didn?t catch the description above accurately, but I don?t get any prompt to consent to the saved text or not.

[MoMan]

Glad to hear you like it and that it works! The prompt only shows up in the PM quick reply interface, as there, a quote of the PM is inserted into the editor by default, and you might not notice that the saved text had been inserted otherwise

[RTMdotORG]

Is there a way to show text when it happens like vB4?

[MentaL]

Works good.

[MoMan]

Originally Posted by RTMdotORG

Is there a way to show text when it happens like vB4?

Since this fires as soon as you start typing and for every character you enter, it would have to work differently. For a future release I'm planning to have it work differently

[bitwise2000]

Anyone have this running successfully on 3.7?

This is a better mousetrap than the one I know runs ok on 3.7.