New Feature: Post Preview; help me test it.

Hi all,

I've added a "Preview" button to the New Topic, Reply, and Edit Post pages. What does it do? It let's you preview your message, bbcode, URLs and images without having to post it first. It's great to help fix errors and spot typos.

Click the "Preview" button to see what you've typed. It will appear in a preview box above the Edit window.

You can preview as much as you like, then you can submit it when you're happy. I must have used it to fix changes about ten times on this post alone!

ALSO: as a sidenote, there had been a few complaints over the years about people losing their posts because they entered their passwords wrong, and when they hit the back button, everything they typed was gone. That shouldn't happen now. The error message should appear above the Edit window and retain what you typed (no back button needed, but it can still happen if the server is down or overloaded, but there's not much I can do in that case).

This was a somewhat big change to the New Topic, Reply, and Edit Post pages. I did a lot of testing of it, but I'm not 100% sure all the bugs are out of it. So, please, if you find a glitch, post it here so I can track it down and fix it!

Mahalo,

Hanford

[ Edited by: hanford_lemoore on 2005-03-27 03:29 ]

Hanford, I really Love the preview button. It will save Hundreds of edits just for Me alone. Thanks for your constant upgrading and making TC a better place to live.

After I previewed, it blanked out my user name, I think.

...thanks for the feedback... still working on it...

It is great, x-ept I always hit the "Preview" button even when I want to "Submit", cause that's were "Submit" used to be...
Just a matter of retraining my braining...

It's like you made this just for me! I love the new feature, this and a spell check feature would maked my piosts's flawlwess. :wink:

I fixed the Quote problem, and I put more space between the Preview button and the other buttons.

Still need to look into Swanky's report...

~Hanford

[ Edited by: hanford_lemoore on 2005-03-27 18:52 ]

yeah, bigbro - I kept thinking that I got locked out of TC because it never submitted. Then I realized it was the preview button. My bulb is obviously not the brightest...

Hanford - my user name was deleted each time I hit the preview button too, but the password was still there. I remember reentering my username many times....

great idea with the preview button, by the way.

hey, this is really helpful! thanks!

On 2005-03-27 18:51, Polynesiac wrote:
yeah, bigbro - I kept thinking that I got locked out of TC because it never submitted.

Yeah, I've spaced the buttons out a little bit so tat Preview is more to the left, but it's still going to take a little bit more time to get used to.

Hanford - my user name was deleted each time I hit the preview button too

Yes, this was something I never tested because I use the "store my username as a cookie" option. I'll look into it.

LOVE the preview button! Thanks!

On 2005-03-27 14:51, DawnTiki wrote:
It's like you made this just for me! I love the new feature, this and a spell check feature would maked my piosts's flawlwess. :wink:

Likewise. Just tried the preview function and it's great, especially if you attach a picture. However, as the world's worst speller, I'm still going to have to type my posts in another application where I can spell-check before I paste them into the reply box. Seriously. My spelling (and typing for that matter) is so bad, it's embarrassing. I learnt to spell phonetically, not correctly.

-Duke

Edited to fix spelling... not kidding.

[ Edited by: boutiki on 2005-03-28 11:06 ]

The preview button ROCKS. Thanx Hanford.

i heart hanford's skills.

Works great! Just did a very long photo-heavy post & I was able to fix stuff before posting.

Nice.

Thanks man!

Very nice! Although I still managed to post twice and had to go back and edit. We need some sort of AI here to read our post, and then restruture it into something intelligible and hopefully correctly spelled...

Was gonna say, quate didn't work...

Maybe we need a "I'm Drunk" button as well. That makes you think 3 or 4 times before you post... And even a "how drunk" radio button so we can be aware... Maybe just for the Bilge area.

I also had the blanked out user name problem like Swanky. Must be only when you reply or post prior to signing in.

Ahu

Super addition Mr Lemoore! Worked fine on Mac OS X, Although I had to re-enter my username in the preview mode also.
Chongolio

I had the same blanked out username problem when I performed a preview, but I was already signed in. I also had a problem where I had been called away after starting a post, I came back & completed it, then I hit preview & lost the post when it said I was no longer logged in.