Hi Gang,

As I understand it, the community generally expects new pages to appear on summitpost.org in a relatively complete, polished form. If this convention truly is important to the community, then in my view, it deserves a little support from the content management system. In fact, there have been requests for this feature in the past, and the workarounds suggested (e.g., developing the content on the side, either in plain text or implemented in HTML) seem likely to discourage an author's attempts to meet this community standard.

While it is currently possible to preview changes to pages, it doesn't seem possible to preview the first version of the page (let alone save it permanently in the database, where it would be safe from a browser crash). Although authors could just use some naming convention for unfinished pages, I agree that this would fail to address some of the core motivations for the standard (e.g., they'd still show up in the "new pages" areas, though perhaps this is less of an issue now that we seem to have moved to moderated "best new pages" areas).

Again, if the standard is important, then I think it justifies efforts to make it easier for authors to meet that standard. While it's true that some authors might still flout the standard, I am certain that a "save as draft" feature would result in more new pages appearing in better form.

That's what everyone one wants, right?

- Chris

Chris,

Many of us, myself included, would love to see something like this, but as it doesn't seem in the works, some of us have pursued an option that works nearly as well: creating a Custom Object as a workshop page. There, you can work on a page at your preferred pace, and you can even upload photos and work out the formatting. When you are ready to post the real page, it's just a matter of copying and pasting, and then attaching the pictures to the mountain page.

Here is mine as an example, and you can see I've been quite busy and have much in the works: http://www.summitpost.org/page-workshop/307131.

Cheers,

Bob

Now I don't usually run into a problem that I'm about to mention, but a friend of mine would argue this:

"What if then someone see's my custom object, is able to copy facts from my beta, and then write a mountain page (or what ever it is). This would pose a bit of a problem for page makers"

Personally my solution is to use notepad and save my progress or post it all at once. But yeah I certainly understand the OP's point of view on this.

Josh Lewis wrote:Now I don't usually run into a problem that I'm about to mention, but a friend of mine would argue this:

"What if then someone see's my custom object, is able to copy facts from my beta, and then write a mountain page (or what ever it is). This would pose a bit of a problem for page makers"

I don't think that is an issue... I have never once heard of anyone complaining about it actually happening, and if it did happen I am sure it would be publicized. If someone lift's your writeup, submit your page anyway and let it be known what happened.

My friend is a bit paranoid about his peaks being snatched. As I said, I don't think it's a problem.

Bob Sihler wrote:...some of us have pursued an option that works nearly as well: creating a Custom Object as a workshop page. There, you can work on a page at your preferred pace, and you can even upload photos and work out the formatting. When you are ready to post the real page, it's just a matter of copying and pasting, and then attaching the pictures to the mountain page.

Here is mine as an example, and you can see I've been quite busy and have much in the works: http://www.summitpost.org/page-workshop/307131.

At times when SP is running really slow and I've had to shut down my PC before I could finish a page, I've just changed the Page Type from Mountain/Rock to Custom - photo attachments and all - then when I was able to finish the page the next day, I changed the page type back to Mountain/Rock, ensured all pertinent M/R information is included (elevation, etc.) then re-saved my page for publishing in the What's New section.

Sarah