wiki editor: save button, preview

ryryguy

ryryguy

I've only been using the site for a little while, mostly working on wiki pages as I try to "import" my campaign from ye old overstuffed binder.

One thing I find clunky is having to scroll down to the bottom of the page to find the "Save" button. Especially since for the most part I'm just working in the main window, and I have to scroll past the big empty "GM Only" window to find it. I'm not sure exactly where, but another Save button near the top of the page would be nice.

Most wiki's I've worked on also have some sort of a preview feature. Since there isn't one here, I essentially have to save the page in order to see if I've gotten the formatting correct. It's not a big deal, but I wonder if it isn't putting extra load on the site to have all these unnecessary saves? (Though I dunno how a preview feature works on the back end - obviously it has to parse then serve up the formatted text, so maybe it's almost as bad.)

The wiki I use at work (Confluence) has tabbed layout with edit and preview tabs. This is very nice as you can easily jump back and forth between the raw source and the preview. Better than having a "Preview" button, then "Save" and "Edit some more" buttons on the preview page.

Micah

I feel your pain. The lack of preview is definitely an issue, and even more so in the case of comments.

In our case, a preview would probably entail pretty much the same server load, as all our parsing / rendering is done server-side, so a preview feature would still require a hit to the server. However, it's not a big deal and we're not stressing the server too much now (thanks to Ryan's recent optimizations). Maybe when things get bigger, but we'll cross that bridge when we (hopefully) come to it.

The save button at the top is a good idea, and easy to do. We try to go for a "bang for the buck" approach and make small, easy usability changes that make everything a little nicer without entailing lots of development work.

Thanks for the suggestions and keep them coming!

Greipr

Well I did a search and found this topic for my issue. Am I missing a save button that doesn't make me scroll way down past a bunch of junk I don't care about?

LonePaladin

Having an Edit button closer to the body of the text would also be helpful. Especially on a long entry (the timeline on my campaign wiki is _verrrry_ long), getting to that Edit button takes quite a bit of scrolling.

DarkMagus

Hey LonePaladin, I just checked your wiki page and I agree it is definitely very long. I have a suggestion which might be both helpful for you and for people browsing the page. Check out my little "Jump To" section on "this page":http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaign/gaming-music/wikis/main-page. It helps the user (and me) skip to lower sections of the page. You might want to think of implementing something like that on your time line page, it would significantly reduce your scrolling down also. I got the code from "ChainSaw's Tips and tricks":http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaign/sanction/wikis/tips-tricks#4 read the section titled _"How do I create a link to a specific section of a wiki page, so it automatically scrolls down?"_ If you have any difficulty implementing the code at all just send me a message and I'll see what I can do. I'm not the best at coding but I fee like this one is pretty straight forward.

WadeL

I'd like to add my voice to those calling for an edit button near the top of wiki entries(there is one for adventure log pages and characters, right?), and a save button at the top of all pages to save. Seems a very simple usability change that could actually save a lot of annoyance in the long run.

Dungeon_Master_Loki

+1