Site Upgrades for March 6, 2014 - Drafts in More Places!

[iacas]

Drafts in more places + a new drafts preference

For a few releases, we've had support for draft saving of reply posts.  In this release we're adding more drafting support and a new preference to enable or disable drafts on a per-user basis.

To start, we're adding drafts for new thread creation.  Now at the bottom of of your new thread creation form, you'll see the same "Discard Draft" link and "Save Draft" / draft status.  (And don't worry, we're not making the new thread bodies super small - it's just shrunk for the sake of screen shots.)

On Private Messages, both in the message center full page form or in a dialog from another page, you'll see the Discard Draft and draft status at the bottom as well.  We're also adding a new standard Drafts folder.

Both PM and new thread drafting are also supported in most mobile browsers.

Now I know what you're asking.  After you create PM drafts and new thread drafts, how do you get back to them?  On your profile underneath your activity, above your image galleries, you'll see a new module for your drafts.

At the top of the module, you may have noticed a "View All Drafts" link.  This will take you to the full drafts page:

From the full drafts page, you can access all of your drafts and discard any drafts (one at a time or all of them at once).  The drafts page is also available in mobile and can be accessed from the user's profile page.

In addition to this, we're adding a user preference to enable or disable drafts.  When unchecked, all drafts functionality will be removed for that user.  They will not see the new profile module, the drafts page, or any have any drafting capabilities.

Better user education about hot keys (#15005)

As you may know, there are a variety of hot keys available in the rich text and BB Code editors.  However you might not know that there has always been an "accessibility" guide available via a keyboard command (Alt+0) in the rich text editor that includes a short list of the other hot keys.  In this release we're doing a few things to make the hot keys a little less mysterious.

First, we've updated the tooltip labels in rich text and BB Code editor toolbars to include the relevant hot key, if there is one.  The label will also change depending on if you're on a PC or a Mac (to adjust for the Ctrl or ⌘ preference).

Here's what this will look like in rich text on a PC:

Here's what it'll look like in BB Code on a Mac:

We're also adding a new button to the BB Code editor and the expanded "kitchen sink" version of the rich text editor.

This button will invoke the new and improved guide to keyboard shortcuts:

Successive quotes will be added to the end of your existing post

In this release, we're changing the behavior of quoting a bit.

Here's what happens now:

1. You quote a post and type out your reply
2. You go back up into the thread and quote another post
3. The second post you quoted is added to your draft at the beginning of your post

Here's what will happen after the release:

1. You quote a post and type out your reply
2. You go back up into the thread and quote another post
3. The second post you quoted is added to your draft at the end of your post

Smaller things

• Modifications have been made to improve typing speed on iOS.
• Undo in the rich text editor quick mode will now function correctly when you paste content into the editor.
• Users can now interact with the  "Mark Forums Read" dialog with their keyboard (up/down arrows, tab, enter)
• The first post of a thread will now properly appear in the Posts section of the search results page in addition to the Threads section.
• Submitting comments on a review, article, gallery or image using the BB Code editor will now submit after one click (rather than requiring two)

[mvmac]

Here's what happens now:

You quote a post and type out your reply

You go back up into the thread and quote another post

The second post you quoted is added to your draft at the beginning of your post

Here's what will happen after the release:

You quote a post and type out your reply

You go back up into the thread and quote another post

The second post you quoted is added to your draft at the end of your post

Good stuff