One Small Suggestion ~ for Writing

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    • One Small Suggestion ~ for Writing

      Hey, this is a small frustration that I have ... actually, for me, it's kinda large. But, I occasionally lose writing data when I'm putting together any writings for the World Herald or in-game messages. When doing anything major, I always save my content as I'm something of a writer. But, for smaller stuff, and responses to others, and such, I don't always back up what I'm saying, nor should I in many cases.

      So, after the last thing that I just lost -- and could not reconstruct -- occurred, I started thinking about "Why doesn't the game save my last content?" Sure, maybe I accidentally hit "Cancel" but sometimes there's a glitch and the server doesn't properly receive my sent content. Actually, I've been surprised to find -- sometimes -- that I'll send something fairly complex, hit send, and find that the connection is lost, yet, once it finally gets found (i.e., reset modem), the local game content actually buffers the data to be sent and holds it in memory until it gets successfully sent -- and it does!

      Now, if the above is true -- and it is -- then I don't see how it would hurt to make this little request. Please add a buffer for last entry (or for multiple past entries). The game utilizes memory allocated to the web browser and this memory is pretty stable in the recommended browsers like Firefox and Chrome.

      This behavior is specially implemented in the forums -- the autosave feature which constantly backs up your material and even offers to restore it after switching threads and closing the page and even getting logged off and coming back later -- but that backup routine is done on the server end. But, the out-going data in-game buffer is implemented on the client side and should easily be able to be duplicated [or rather have allocated] memory space to serve as a writing buffer for backing up your work.

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      So, here's how I propose it would work (this part is mostly for the dev team and may be difficult for the forum volunteers to follow):

      The buffer gets allocated more space (or maybe is open-ended?) and is subdivided into separate blocks (i.e., a linked list) with a limited history of data. When a person fills content in a message window or in a World Herald article or in a bug report, that content is dually being copied to two new blocks of space in the buffer (perhaps every 30 seconds).

      The [new] two blocks are for safer backing up of data. In a linked list, the front-most of the two blocks will be the most current work. After the buffer gets data copied to the front-most block during an edit, once it has successfully finished receiving the data, it must duplicate itself to the second block behind the front-most block. So, every 30 seconds (or 20 or 10, or whatever is practical to avoid conflict between the first-to-second duplication without overwriting the first block with newer data during the duplication), the current data in an article or message gets copied to both blocks (in sequence). In this way, the first block will act like a buffer within the buffer to protect the data and ensure that data is complete when it gets backed up.

      If the popup modal window gets closed without hitting agree (i.e., hit "Cancel" or click outside the window or hit "escape" key, etc.), if it's in the middle of a backup write, it doesn't actually get closed until after the write action. Then, upon successfully closing the modal popup window and, as soon as the front-most block duplicates itself to the second-to-front block, the front-most block gets dropped from the list while the second-to-front block becomes the front-most block.

      Now, this is all well and good, but, if only keeping the most recent content, then, when hitting the "Send" button, the buffer gets reset and the memory space gets deallocated. And, given that only the most recent content gets saved, if the modal popup window gets closed without "Send", then, the buffer stays in memory until either the browser tab or window gets closed or a new message gets "sent". But, in this case, when opening a new message (or new World Herald edit), the old content (if it exists) gets offered to refill the modal popup window's text field(s).

      The user then can choose to accept the restored data or hit "Ignore" to retain the data as-is in the memory or hit "Delete" to purposefully clear the memory. Perhaps a sample of the existing text could be shown within a separate field of the query box and instead of offering "Ignore", the box may simply offer "Cancel" that -- if clicked -- clears and refreshes the buffer (like what happens when hitting "send"). The "Cancel" button would act as 'delete' so a separate "Delete" button would be unnecessarily redundant.

      If, however, there is to be a history, then there would be no clearing of the buffer, but instead it would simply grow and there would need to be a way to review prior information and use it, but that would be even more complicated. Also, there would need to be a finite list size with the last entry getting dropped when the limit is reached or a time limit (i.e. 48 hours) in which case the oldest block in the list (when it reaches 48 hours old) gets dropped .

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      Obviously, this would take a little doing to implement, but, for a competent programmer, this would be pretty easy to implement.

      I would greatly appreciate the implementation of this or a similar writing backup function in the game.
      It seemed like such a waste to destroy an entire battle station just to eliminate one man. But Charlie knew that it was the only way to ensure the absolute and total destruction of Quasi-duck, once and for all.

      The saying, "beating them into submission until payday", is just golden...pun intended.

      R.I.P. Snickers <3
    • PM's aren't actually saved, but while the diplomacy window is open, it acts like it's being saved because each tab seems like a separate window, when they are a part of the same window. As long as you are switching between tabs, you don't lose text information.

      However, once you've accidentally or intentionally closed the window, the data is lost if not submitted by clicking "send".
      It seemed like such a waste to destroy an entire battle station just to eliminate one man. But Charlie knew that it was the only way to ensure the absolute and total destruction of Quasi-duck, once and for all.

      The saying, "beating them into submission until payday", is just golden...pun intended.

      R.I.P. Snickers <3