Hey, I have a random tech nerd problem that I thought I'd just throw out here.

My wife freaked out yesterday from having spent quite some time on writing a post on a web forum, only to be greeted with "Sorry, the worthless server you're trying to post your blood, sweat and tear-stained writing to isn't feeling too well. To ensure your inconvenience, you won't be able to retrieve whatever you wrote".

So I started thinking that browsers should be able to rescue users from this scenario. Are any of you guys using any extensions or plug-ins that do this? I know there's Scribe for Firefox pre 1.0, and something called SessionSaver for later versions, but apparently there are some stability issues. Plus, I don't need to save my entire session. Essentially, what I want is a combination of a safety net if something goes wrong (save the content of the form when the submit button is pushed) and possibly a browsable history of the posts I've made to different sites. Ideally, I'd like one that worked for Safari, because both my wife and I primarily use our mactop for generic surfing and forum-writing.

As a follow-up question, have any of you tried to write browser extensions or plug-ins yourselves?

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"If it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic." - Tweedledee

Are you using the Saft plug-in?

I'm not sure if it does what you need but it does just about everything else.

Also... why doesn't hitting the back button work?

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The mind plays tricks on you. You play tricks back! It's like you're unraveling a big cable-knit sweater that someone keeps knitting and knitting and knitting and knitting and knitting and knitting...

I know this is a lame solution to the problem, but I just write everything out in Wordpad and then copy/paste.

I've been hit too many times with that problem. Drives me insane. Don't know of any plug-ins to handle *just* that issue.

As for writing them myself - I've looked into it, but not because it's something I really want to do. More just because I've been curious about how it's done. I find the interfaces to perform such work to be clunky, so I stay away...

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- Rory
- Owner of Neopoleon
- Monster in the sack

GuyIncognito:

Are you using the Saft plug-in?

Not yet.

GuyIncognito:

I'm not sure if it does what you need but it does just about everything else.

So it would seem. I'll definitely install it.

GuyIncognito:

Also... why doesn't hitting the back button work?

My sentiments exactly. Apparently, there are plenty of ways for web designers/programmers/whatever to mess up the browser's back button. So I want a solution where, when I see some lame excuse from a server, I don't have to pray that the back button works.

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"If it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic." - Tweedledee

Rory:

I just write everything out in Wordpad and then copy/paste.

Yeah, I do that too sometimes, when I know in advance that I'm going write more than a few lines. But my brain works in very ad hoc manner, it just makes stuff up on the way you know? And then suddenly I'll have written a novel in a textarea box, and when I hit post, the server will just say njah-njah hah-hah and the world will just be this cruel place.

Rory:

As for writing them myself - (...) I find the interfaces to perform such work to be clunky, so I stay away...

I'm actually considering trying to understand how the Scribe extension for Firefox works, meaning I'll be reading a lot more javascript than I had intended to. Of course, the truly lame thing is that Safari probably has a completely different way of doing things. Actually, I haven't been able to uncover much material on how to write plug-ins for Safari at all.

Actually, I think I'd be satisfied with this minuscule plug-in that did nothing but copy the textarea content into the clipboard upon hitting 'post'.

But maybe this Saft thing solves everything, who knows.

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"If it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic." - Tweedledee