...Really? REALLY?

The5lacker·Jul 30, 2014·25 votes·5,440 views

Okay so I just spent a good two hours writing up a champion concept at 2 in the morning, I'm tired, and I hit the backspace key.

Which causes me to load the previous page. Now, this isn't the fault of the boards. This is the fault of Firefox, and it's a feature designed by someone who has no comprehension of what a keyboard does. They should be castrated, but that's not what's giving me an aneurism at the moment. What's giving me an aneurism is that when I hit the forwards button, my entire, nine paragraph, carefully balanced post was gone.

Completely. Backing and reloading the page lost EVERYTHING I wrote. What even the hell guys? Reloading a page shouldn't throw everything a user's wrote out. The old forums didn't do that. Hell, my computer could CRASH and when my computer booted back up the forums would have my post saved and ready to use.

What even the hell guys? Can we get some sort of autosaving drafts rolling or something? Good god, this kind of thing is a nightmare.

42 Comments

RiotKrylhosJul 30, 201417 votes

This has bit me in the arse once as well. Once we get a couple other items buttoned up, I'd like to look into resolving this kind of negative experience for unsaved posts.

Hyrum GraffJul 31, 20141 votes

Just putting it out there that this is my #1 biggest issue with Boards atm.

Cheers, Hyrum Graff

John BerserkJul 30, 201410 votes

Not that this will bring your post back, but for future reference, you should try writing out your champion concept in a word or text document. That way, backspace merely deletes a character. :P

Also it gives you more time to look at it and edit it and whatnot.

SindustryJul 30, 20141 votes

Not to mention text editors rarely crash. The same can't be said for browsers lol.

MorvrannisJul 30, 20144 votes

While this is technically a solution, it's a really poor one. Auto-saving in forums is a problem that has been solved numerous times over and, quite frankly, it's a simple feature to implement (particularly with the advent of local store).

In addition, Microsoft Word won't show you any of the board's formatting (since it uses markup) which doesn't give you a good preview.

RiotMontagJul 31, 20144 votes

MS Word and most text editors aren't really great writing environments. I'll write directly on Boards for short posts, but if I ever want to do something long like what the OP described, I always go to a slick editor. Helps my brain focus just on the words.

I'm a huge Markdown nerd (as the Boards team's painfully aware), and I highly recommend some of the awesome Markdown-flavored text editors out there.

If you're on a Mac, I recommend these two:

Byword - one of the best writing experiences I've had on the Mac
Mou - less sexy than Byword, but free!

If you're on Windows, I've heard good things about (but not used) the following:

This is just my personal recommendation, as someone who's picky about writing environments (and who has lost more than one forum post on other platforms to the reload button). I'm certain the Boards team will always be making improvements to the basic editor.

Linna ExcelJul 31, 20142 votes

MS Word and most text editors aren't really great writing environments.

Is this because MS hides a ton of crap for formatting?

The5lackerJul 30, 20142 votes

I prefer to write things down with the preview system available, as I frequently use it for formatting. Especially considering how silly bolded text is made.

I mean...double asterisks? Really guys?

John BerserkJul 30, 20142 votes

I understand that, but maybe it'd be best from now on to write out the main chunk of it, the actual content, in microsoft word or notepad, then copy+paste it into the comment box to do the final formatting touches on it later on.

ChickenWrapJul 30, 20143 votes

Use Google Chrome to prevent things like this from happening.

ChickenWrapJul 30, 20142 votes

Also this should be in miscellaneous.

Hyrum GraffJul 30, 20147 votes

Boards Feedback is the right place.

The OasisJul 30, 20143 votes

This happens to me on Chrome.

ChickenWrapJul 30, 20142 votes

I have accidentally gone back a page numerous times and hit the "forward page" button and everything is always right as I had left it.

SindustryJul 30, 20142 votes

Depends on if page forces reset of forms/input, like entering credit card info to buy something, etc.

When developers stop with the KISS (Keep it stupid simple), small things can get absurdly annoying.

MarhsallLee67Jul 30, 20141 votes

I'm pretty sure all browsers do this.

Sir ArmaMalumJul 30, 20143 votes

This has gotten me a few times as well, my laptop is a tablet hybrid (touchscreen) and the screen is buggy as hell. sometimes it will randomly click somewhere on a page, and if I'm, say, typing a long draft of a post and hit backspace at the wrong time -poof- all gone. :(

I think everyone here either really wants this feature or doesn't yet realize they want this feature, but as Krylhos said, it's always a matter of priorities and this may seem simply to start but can turn into a huge time-sink depending on bugs, compatibility and such. So it's a "yes but not now" imho.

RiotMontagJul 31, 20144 votes

As a general rule with all the stuff we build, the difficulty's much less in the feature itself than scaling it to the number of people who have to use it -- or the number who will have to use it in the future. Even for a relatively simple feature, a lot of the work goes into making sure it can hold up under a lot of weight. You have to have very different supports when the structure has to hold up ten players vs. a thousand vs. a hundred-thousand players.

AkaiNeko4Jul 30, 20142 votes

Just checked. I'm using Chrome and yep, it's gone. That shit ain't good, Riot.

ChickenWrapJul 30, 20141 votes

Odd, doesn't vanish for me =(

SindustryJul 30, 20142 votes

In college they teach you to save every 10 minutes, for reasons of that exact nature.

And yeah, I've experienced that before. Notepad++ ftw.

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/924490 to disable in firefox fyi.

AbiwonKenabiJul 30, 20142 votes

I feel for you. Its one of the reasons, when I'm feeling creative, I put down my initial concepts on paper. Yeah I know, PAPER. What is this, the 90s?

Hopefully your concept stuck in your head enough? Otherwise we will use your sacrifice as a way to fight to save all future fan-created champion concepts and other lengthy posts from the horrible fate of your own. God bless.

The5lackerJul 30, 20142 votes

Fortunately I remember most of the numbers I'd decided on, but still. This is just a basic board feature issue that I had the misfortune of discovering. The "WHELP YOU DIDN'T NEED THAT" feature.

MrBuffingtonJul 30, 20142 votes

lol yea, I usually write it up in a word processor (or at least a sticky note) before transferring it onto the boards. A save function would be really nice on the boards though

steelblackskyJul 30, 20142 votes

have you tried the lazarus plugin for whatever browser you use? saves the text entered anywhere in the browser in question every so often as entered and has a clipboard list like backlog of text entry so you can retrieve it later, even if the website it was being entered in no longer exists.

it doesn't ALWAYS work, but it has saved my shiny metal hindquarters a few times.

CuixJul 31, 20142 votes

Lazarus plugin.

nosafterburnJul 30, 20141 votes

this is why you should always copypasta before you click. For Saftey!

The5lackerJul 30, 20141 votes

I didn't click. I was typing, I hit backspace, and it went back a page.

the Anarchit3chtJul 30, 20141 votes

The backspace only takes you back a page if you don't currently have the typing field selected. If it moved you back a page, it means, even if by accident, that you clicked out of the typing field.

JingerbeardmanJul 30, 20141 votes

This happened to me once before and from then on I learned to simply write everything in notepad or word first and save it that way. The net is to fickle for longer entries into forums and so it is best to use precautionary measures :P

thing is that if you click into a new page and hit back your form data, what you typed, can sometimes still be there. But hitting back causes the browser to backpedal and if you hit forward it loads the page as if it were fresh.

NightpowerJul 30, 20141 votes

Two words: Google Chrome

S3thc0nJul 30, 20141 votes

If your browser does not support saving text in edit boxes, try an addon. Firefox for example can sport 'Lazarus: Form Recovery', which will backup everything 100%.

Angry MonsterJul 30, 20141 votes

The reason why this is happening is cause the forums do not continuously update when on a page. This is a bandwidth saving feature for most sites. The system would have to ping your web browser every 30 sec to check for changes in order for an auto save.

Your idea is feasible but takes a lot of bandwidth when you consider this forum is now global instead of regional.

PikaliciousJul 31, 20141 votes

Don't worry, you weren't on to anything special.

The5lackerAug 1, 20142 votes

You strike me as a well-liked individual.

PikaliciousAug 19, 20151 votes

Sorry, I thought I was hilarious a this moment. But my troll may have been a bit too hard. It's officially been a year I hope you got back your work. I myself an ardent writer.

Linna ExcelJul 31, 20141 votes

Firefox is supposed to have an addon in case something like that happens.

BLACKB0MBERJul 31, 20141 votes

I literally hate internet browsers because of that functionality. I dont know whose ideas it was, but its dumbest thing ever, especially with forums and long emails.

Also get in the habit of copying often when you write wall of texts, or anything you dont feel like rewriting. Its happened too many times to me.

God GodAug 1, 20141 votes

Or you could write it in a computer program e.g (Word, Note pad) then copy and paste. That way you'll have it even if something unfortunate happens. Just don't forget to save often.

AK47WOLFAug 4, 20141 votes

If you haven't learned by now to CTRL+C every few minutes when writing a long post, I'm not sure what to tell you.