Usability:losing changes when editing wiki article (preview)

[tomater@…]

Scenario

I am writing lots of text in wiki. I have to work with several windows, analyze information and then summarize in one article. Wyziwig works unstable, so I do my changes in text and them check it in preview.

Unfortunately, there already was several times when I lost lot of work accidentaly clicking in links in my new article. I follow link, look for more information, go back - OOPS! - my changes lost, because I forgot to press "submit" button.

And I can't remebmer in which window I was editing to go back in history, or even I already closed that window.

Yes, all this are my own mistakes. But the bad thing is that TRAC allows me to do that mistakes.

Proposition

I know, I can't ask for real WYSIWYG editor :) I also know that I can't ask for autosave feature just like in Google blogs. But what you can really implement is:

• Make all links inside Preview window opening NEW browser window instead following links in same one.
• To handle also accidental closing of window add Java Script code that asks "Are you really sure to close window? All your editing will be lost..."

[hyuga <hyugaricdeau@…>]

This is definitely a plugin candidate. In fact, I've been maintaining such a plugin since Trac 0.9.x, but unfortunately it was developed internally and I'm still trying to get permission to release it, because it is quite useful.

[anonymous]

Replying to hyuga <hyugaricdeau@gmail.com>:

Why plug-in? It seems to me this should be default behavior. Actually what I proposed does not influence main stream usage, just prevents user from doing something wrong. What would be the reason for someone to follow links in preview window losing all changes?

[eblot]

Replying to anonymous:

Why plug-in? It seems to me this should be default behavior. Actually what I proposed does not influence main stream usage, just prevents user from doing something wrong. What would be the reason for someone to follow links in preview window losing all changes?

Hint: some users (me included) do not want a web site to decide wether a link opens a new browser or not, but prefer to let this choice to the user. Having a "preview" feature that does not behave as the final rendering does not seem very consistent and quite confusing from my point of view.

[cboos]

I agree with eblot: users should stay in control. If you know that you make such mistakes, use a Web browser which is able to cope with them, like Firefox (Undo Close Tab feature which even keeps content of edited textareas).