"Your changes have been saved" -- but they haven't!!

Question

This happens to me repeatedly:

I am editing a bio and saving (usually) as I go along.  Then suddenly I lose connection with the internet for a minute or two (I live in a retirement community & this happens frequently & I fail to notice) and I do a save while the connection is interrupted -- and lose my most recent changes.

It seems to me that when we make a change after doing a save, the notice that our changes have been saved should disappear.

I know I can avoid the problem by paying closer attention but I occaionally forget to do so.  Also, actually the connection signal is a second or so late -- so that I can lose connection before the signal changes.

It would help if Wikitree were more accurate in re "changes saved" notifications.

This just happened to me after a particularly complicated change.  (I also know I could save my changes to my word processor,  but -- as I said -- it seems to me that Wikitree could be more accurate in its notifications. Thanks.

Pat

Comments

Minter Jackson Prickett profile is set on red privacy level

Answer 1

I agree with you about that but a way to avoid having to remember about the changes is to click the private view after you save and you can see where the profile is.  That will clear the orange notification at the top and if you need to make more edits you will need to select edit and save again.  Also, if you know your connection to the internet is interrupted you will need to wait until the connection is restored before you are able to save the most recent edits.  If your connection is broken and you save you will only erase and lose your most recent edits.

Also, there is likely an icon on your computer that shows whether your are connected. On Windows 7 it's at the bottom right and shows a plug next to a monitor and if the connection is broken a little yellow triangle displays covering the monitor, it's very small this triangle, not much of a warning really.  Most browsers will have something similar.

Answer 2

Patricia,

I feel your pain and frustration and regret being the bearer of bad tidings here.

When you click SAVE and the page refreshes with the notice that your changes have been saved, you were connected at the time you saved - that's how the refreshed page included the notice about the save having been done.

If you continue working on the page and the next time you click SAVE you have lost your connection, then your changes will not go through, obviously.

Your problem is that while you are working on the page, it doesn't matter whether or not you are connected - you are not sending anything, so WikiTree has no way of knowing that you are still working, therefore cannot suddenly remove the notice about your last changes having been saved.  Nothing gets sent to WikiTree until you click SAVE again ... that is, provided you are connected to the internet at that moment.

There is nothing WikiTree can do about it.

Comments

Thanks for your comment tho I don't understand why making a change in the bio can't automatically eliminate the "changes saved notification without having to send the info to Wikitree -- somehow I feel there are other websites that work differently -- but of course I could be mistaken!!

Pat

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Yes other sites do it different.  Good shopping carts never lose your order, in case you can't be bothered to do it all again.

Obviously it's the browser's job not to lose your work until it's successfully handed over to the server.  The browser can do this, but it needs to be fully informed.

The orange banner messages are the problem.  If a save fails - or any form submission - the browser needs to be told by an HTTP error code.  Then the browser can display a pop-up message, leave the page unchanged, and remember that unsaved changes exist.

Indicating a successful save is often clumsier, owing to limitations of the protocol.  Many sites just return you to the home page or previous level.  Many other sites will return a near-blank "thank you" page with "what next" options like "return to inbox" or "continue shopping".  It's not pretty, but it works.  Some sites do return the form page with a banner, but it's often not good, because the banner hangs around.

Actually, a "thank you for your contribution" page when saving could add some useful options, like "back out the change just saved" or "add this explanation to the change just saved".

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RJ,

I don't think it's appropriate here to start a deep technical discussion.  The bottom line is that the implementation of shopping carts is not relevant to this situation, nor are HTTP error codes which can only be returned after a server error occurs.  In this case, the lack of internet connection precluded contact with the server.

Your suggestion of a different page being returned following successful processing of submitted data is certainly possible to do, but I think it is better to return the edit page with the message.  My reason is consideration of user ease, plus server overhead.  Users who can retain awareness of whether or not they saved their most recent changes would need to make an additional click to return to the editing page and, of course, the server would have that additional transaction to process.

There is a cleaner way to do this by client side javascript that will hide the banner with the saved message on the first subsequent click and any data field, but I did not suggest it originally because it hardly seems appropriate to do the extra coding to accomplish this and add to client side overhead,  There are far more pressing software issues with higher priority needs for attention by the overworked and underpopuliated technical team.

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I never had this problem because my browser will ask if I want to leave the page if I have done anything without saving it.

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My browser also asks the same thing.  That is not the problem.  The problem comes when I attempt to save without realizing I'm not connected to the internet -- which means I lose newly-saved entries.  I can avoid all this by being a bit more careful in a couple of ways -- as I've previously explained.  Since I'm totally lacking in knowledge about programming I'm not aware of the technical problems involved with proposals/suggesions, etc., I may make.

Pat

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Pat,

The programming to ask that question is a javascript built into the page that runs on your computer, so it does not depend on an internet connection to do that.  Everything else that could give a cue in this situation does require an internet connection, except for the last thing I mentioned - that would require a programming change to add another javascript to the page that would hide the message about changes having been saved the first time you click in a data field.

One suggestion for something you could do to make the saved message disappear is to click the refresh button in your browser BEFORE you do anything else on the page.  I realize how frustrating it must be to keep losing connection that way, and to lose your work on top of that makes it that much worse.  I hope this helps at least a little bit.

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Ideally, the browser will always warn you before discarding unsaved edits.  But some browsers are better than others at this.

However, WikiTree defeats the mechanism.  In certain situations, eg

1 - failed token check

2 - invalid date or wrong date format

3 - brackets in first name field

the server rejects the save, but it tells the browser that the save succeeded.  Now, the browser thinks you have no unsaved edits and will cheerfully allow you to leave the page with your work unsaved.  (Refreshing the page will also be a bad idea.)

 

The browser can handle a lost connection without losing edits.  The problem here is that the left-over banner can lead you to think that your save has succeeded when the browser is still trying to connect.

Actually of course the "Changes saved" message achieves nothing at all after the first time, because you can't tell the difference between the new one and the old one.  In reality, the indication of a save accepted or rejected is that you jump back to the top of the page.

In fact, if you hit the Save button when you're at the top of the page (easier in portrait mode), and the banner is already showing, there's no save-completion feedback at all.  The page redraws exactly as it was before.  You may see it redraw, but blink and you miss it.