Autosave content

[keelanfh]

In the process of moving to LocalGov Drupal, one thing we're missing from our current CMS is autosave functionality.

localgov_microsites is using drupal/autosave_form - could we consider including this in core LocalGov Drupal? Would also welcome any other alternatives.

[finnlewis]

Personally I am really enjoying the drupal/autosave_form in localgov_microsites. It is a neat and unobtrusive way to avoid losing content changes. It has also been used in Thunder for a while.

[keelanfh]

Just had a look at installing drupal/autosave_form again. I noticed that there's a time setting before autosaving, which defaults to 60 seconds - this is quite long.

If implementing this, we probably want to reduce this, though I guess it might have some performance implications.

[markconroy]

I think it makes sense to add this to LGD core, probably with a timeout of 20 seconds or something.

[finnlewis]

I agree we should add it to LGD core, it's pretty neat.

One consideration is that it can get a bit annoying if you don't want to continue editing a draft, or if you are not sure. Say you've visited a node edit form for a bit, made some random or accidental changes, left without saving, then come back some time later. I wonder if reducing the default time to 20 seconds would increase this?

@msayoung I think that in the LocalGov Microsites building and testing, the autosave form got annoying at times. Can you recall if we had any specific feecback from test users and would that suggest a shorter or longer default time?

[keelanfh]

@finnlewis when I've played around with this (admittedly not for very long) I get a message when I return to a page asking whether I want to continue with the autosaved draft, or to discard changes.

Personally I was thinking of a shorter autosave time, maybe 5 seconds or less. We're migrating from another CMS and our content designers are accustomed to what's perceived as 'instant' autosaving, similar to e.g. Google Docs, Word.

Would love to hear about any user feedback on this though @msayoung as we haven't tried this at all yet and so I'm in the dangerous land of assumptions!

[andybroomfield]

Does autosaving make any Drupal requests.
An issue we are encountering at BHCC is Acquia counts any hit to the PHP application against our 'views' quota, which is starting to have an impact with ajax requests and can lead to cost implications.
So we need a way of turning this off, or opting into it only.

[finnlewis]

@andybroomfield autosave will certainly be making hits and that is interesting to know about Acquia's quotas and charging model.

One thing to remember is that the distribution / install profile is a starting point meant for further customisation. If a module like autosave_form is installed and configured by default, it is simple enough to uninstall it or reconfigure it for your specific use case. So these sort of decisions about things to inlude in the distribution do not imply that all users need to use it. To turn it off you would just uninstall the module.

[finnlewis]

@benhillsjones - out of interest, is the autosave_form functionality something that you think other council content designers want?

This functionality request has triggered a discussion around the question:

"What is the policy for adding modules to default install LocalGov eg. autosave"

See #485 (comment)

So just gathering interest on this specific feature while drafting a policy.

[andybroomfield]

Possible alternative:

• Auto Save Form (but different module) Uses browser local storage, and supports all forms so could also be useful for webforms.
• Save Form State Is another local storage option. Uses jQuery Sisyphus

[finnlewis]

This issue has highlighted the question of how we decide what features to add and enable by default in the distribution.

I've started drafting a policy here:
https://github.com/localgovdrupal/localgov/wiki/%5BDraft%5D-Policy-for-adding-a-new-feature,-functionality-or-modules-to-LocalGov-Drupal

It would be good to answer the questions raised so far on this issue:

1. Does more than one council want this feature? / Does a significant proportion of our users want this feature?
2. Can the feature be disabled after installation without any dependency problems?
3. Does the product group / product owner / product lead want to prioritise this feature?
4. Will this enhancement be communicated to users with an existing installation? (e.g. release notes / README.md / drupal_set_message )

Let's take them one by one.

1. Does more than one council want this feature? / Does a significant proportion of our users want this feature?

We know that at @keelanfh (Essex) is keen on this feature, so are there other councils that also want or already use autosave? @benhillsjones @willguv @Boosmith @

2. Can the feature be disabled after installation without any dependency problems?

Yes, I've tested this and after installing the profile with this module being enabled, I can uninstall the autosave_form module without any problems.

3. Does the product group / product owner / product lead want to prioritise this feature?

@willguv can we make some time to discuss this from the product perspective?

4. Will this enhancement be communicated to users with an existing installation?

I think release notes should suffice for this, but happy to look at some other messaging with update hooks or similar if others feel strongly.

[willguv]

Thanks for kicking off this wider discussion @finnlewis . With conversations about the Roadmap Group, I’ve been thinking about it too. Set aside time this week?

[andybroomfield]

Its probably best we separate the discussion of how modules get added to the distribution onto its own ticket so the discussion on autosave functionality does not get lost.

Assuming there is a want for autosaving, I still think we should consider the other modules, especially as the most useful part is having autosave whilst writing a new page which the module here does not do without a patch. Also there are merits around saving it locally and not doing round trips to server (network issues, offline editing).
The clincher will be which one is better at handling autosaves from paragraphs.