251582 - Need to be able to save drafts of textareas

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Toolkit :: Form Manager, enhancement)

Description

[Jonathan Bartlett]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.7) Gecko/20040616
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.7) Gecko/20040616

Have you ever been filling out a large textarea (like web-based email or
something) and lost power, or had your computer crash, or *gasp* had mozilla crash?

In most environments, like word processors, we save as we go.  For long,
involved form-filling-out or just textarea-filling-out, we need to be able to
save our current work, so that we don't lose the 10-page note we just typed, and
so if we wanted to, we could save that note as a text file for later use.

Also, being able to read a text file directly into a textarea would be nice.

I can see this being tricky, especially w/ JavaScript security issues (although
probably not more than input type="file" controls), but it would be really handy
nonetheless.

Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:

Comment 1

[Mats Palmgren (inactive)]

The feature already exists. Under the View menu there is "Save Form Info" and
"Fill in Form".  This covers all form controls, not just textareas.
IMPORTANT: make sure you have a build later than 2004-07-13 otherwise you will
crash on "Fill in Form".  See bug 250771.

Does that meet your needs?

Comment 2

[Bogdan Stroe]

See also bug 217837, and bug 85799.

Comment 3

[Jason Barnabe (np)]

Moving to Form Manager.

Comment 4

[Gervase Markham [:gerv]]

This is an automated message, with ID "auto-resolve01".

This bug has had no comments for a long time. Statistically, we have found that
bug reports that have not been confirmed by a second user after three months are
highly unlikely to be the source of a fix to the code.

While your input is very important to us, our resources are limited and so we
are asking for your help in focussing our efforts. If you can still reproduce
this problem in the latest version of the product (see below for how to obtain a
copy) or, for feature requests, if it's not present in the latest version and
you still believe we should implement it, please visit the URL of this bug
(given at the top of this mail) and add a comment to that effect, giving more
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If it is not a problem any longer, you need take no action. If this bug is not
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Thank you for your help in this matter.

The latest beta releases can be obtained from:
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Seamonkey:   http://www.mozilla.org/projects/seamonkey/

Comment 5

[Hermann Schwab]

(In reply to comment #1)
> The feature already exists. Under the View menu there is "Save Form Info" and
> "Fill in Form".  This covers all form controls, not just textareas.

No, Form Manager doesn't cover this bug. I tried to save a comment I made in
'this' text area here using Form Manager, and found all settings of this bug
page under Tools->Form Manager->Edit Form Info->Other Saved Information->URL
specific, but I didn't find the text I had typed into the text area 'Additional
Comments'.
Imho Form Manager did it right, nearly, tried to save the invariable info of the
form (name, department, address), and tried to not save the variable part of the
form (additional comments). Of course Form Manager can't know which parts are
variable, he can only assume which parts are not variable, but only assume, not
be sure.
What the reporter wants is a autosave feature so if he fills in a long text
area, and the browser dies, he can restore his long text, to go on were he left
forcefully. Imho this isn't part of the functionality of todays form manager.
Form Manager is for long-time storage of often used data, and auto fill-in.
This bug is about of short-time backup of input, short time, as it should be
deleted after successful submission. 
Anyway you've got to think about privacy, or security. Form Manager doesn't
autosave data, with reason. But saving long texts in textareas requires
autosave, also with reason.

My workaround is, if I filled in a textarea and note I must investigate some
more info, I do 'Select All' and cut&paste to my editor, to retrieve it later
when I need it.

Comment 6

[Jo Hermans]

dupe of bug 158258 ?

Comment 7

[Justin Dolske [:Dolske]]

Session (re)store takes care of this. WFM.