I use web-based applications, such as MovableType and Hotmail, a lot. Web-based apps make it easy for me to get things done as I move between computers and locations. However, writing in a browser has its risks. If something goes wrong when you perform a submit, all your editing will be lost.
I try to get in the habit of copy/pasting my writing before I submit my emails in Hotmail or make a post on this blog, but sometimes I forget. In fact, I just forgot again and sure enough when I tried to send an email I’d just written in Hotmail’s editor, I got the error message:
“We apologize, but your account is temporarily unavailable. This delay does not affect the entire site or result from any problem specific with your account however the server that holds your account information is temporarily unavailable. We do not expect this delay to last much longer, so please continue to check our site for your account status. “
Said another way: “You just lost the last email you wrote.”
Doh!
Unfortunately, the back button in the browser doesn’t help here. The text is gone. But I’ve wondered sometimes: Wouldn’t it be nice if the browser could cache all the values you submit in a form for some brief amount of time, just in case the form can’t be sent or the server fails? I wish there was some way to click CTRL-Back for instance that could take me back to the page I was editing, just so I can copy my words out. Yeah, there may be security issues and I know the page is really “stale” and would just have to be a copy of the form, but I’d sure like to be able to get back to what I just typed.
I’m writing this post in the MovableType editor in IE…and yes, I’m going to copy/paste it to Notepad before I press the Save button….just in case.
{ 4 comments }
thats another real reason for smart client applications, The inventor of the www envisioned the www/http-client-server/html as a document sharing platform, the http browser succeeded beyond his wildest dreams, unfortunately a lot of effort went to making the web browser a desktop, a client server front end platform and many other things. I have said this before and am saying it again “the web browser cannot replace the desktop”
“the web browser cannot replace the desktop”
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Hmm, haven’t used IE regularly in a while, but I can tell you that Mozilla Firebird (http://www.mozilla.org/products/firebird/) will “remember” what you typed if you click back. I believe Opera (http://www.opera.com/) will too.
I use Mozilla Firebird 0.6.1 on Libranet 2.7 upgraded through apt-get many times and pressing the back button doesn’t always work with forms. I haven’t tried the latest Opera offerings. Maybe the windows versions are different enough from the Linux versions.
It’s not that IE doesn’t remember what you typed in when you click back, it’s just that what Hotmail and other ‘Dynamic WYSIWG editors’ is tapping into IE’s builtin DHTML editing engine.
So technically to the browser it’s just a DIV tag and not a form tag. When you click submit the client side script will move the HTML of the DIV tag into a INPUT TYPE=HIDDEN tag and then post the changes.
I guess you *could* hack it so it remembers when you click back… cookies? other ways of persistance??
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