As anony monk so delicately put it, this isn't a bug. The message is handled by one form, the CB by another. When you post to the one the data from the other isnt included. If you had hit "back" a couple of times you would have ended up back at the original page, and assuming your browser is properly configured, with the text you had written still available.

While this is annoying (its bitten me a few times) its not a bug. The easiest thing you can do is use a different medium for chat from which you reply. IE, use KatterBox or Fullpage Chat or one of the java clients or whatever.

This is a bug. A bug in design, perhaps, but still a bug. A limitation, too, I imagine, that no one wants to step up and solve (myself included). But still a bug.

It's a limitation imposed by the design of HTML forms, which requires significant web-author effort to work around. It results in some very non-intuitive behaviour, and thus it's at the very least a bug in the design.

Is it worth it to fix? Probably not - almost every page you look at has multiple forms, and the state of other forms are not kept when submitting other forms. That's a lot to go through. But just because there has been, and continues to be, a conscious decision not to change the behaviour doesn't mean it's not a bug.

Sorry about the rant - but I have to deal with this line of thought at work, too, and it annoys me to no end. I have no problems with shipping bugs. As long as everyone acknowledges that's what we're doing. Call it a limitation - fine. But it's still a bug. A bug we may not want to pay to fix. But it's still a bug.

Give it to some corporate spin doctors of large software companies and they probably make it into a feature!

CountZero

"If you have four groups working on a compiler, you'll get a 4-pass compiler." - Conway's Law

Exactly correct. Glad you're already a pmdevil.

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Warning: Unless otherwise stated, code is untested. Do not use without understanding. Code is posted in the hopes it is useful, but without warranty. All copyrights are relinquished into the public domain unless otherwise stated. I am not an angel. I am capable of error, and err on a fairly regular basis. If I made a mistake, please let me know (such as by replying to this node).

Thank you for that. I'm glad there is a remedy (Go Back a Page or Two). Also I agree it may not be worth the effort to fix, but it is a bug. It is unexpected behavior from the application.

I didn't realize folks were so sensitive to bug reports. Its not a personal attack its a bug (or maybe a feature :).)

A "fix" that I've previously proposed is: Add <base target="_blank"> for the node comment on and override the preview form to use <form target="_self" ...> such that any "distractions" from previewing will open into another window, leaving the preview intact. That is about all that HTML / HTTP will allow. And I suspect that anyone who cares can probably implement that solution right now with custom CSS. I usually refuse to pretend to be a CSS expert so I'll let someone else fill in the details on how to do that and correct any HTML mistakes I've made above.

There are quite a few other tricks that would allow the last update that got submitted to be recoverable even if your browser's "Back" button doesn't work out (such failures are the minority in my experience but also happen far more often than makes sense), but that would lose updates made between the most recent submit and the "distraction". Having PerlMonks store each user's most-recent preview(s) is one of those that I've long called for.

Also, you could write JavaScript to do all manner of whacky things related to this. I suspect I'd find most of them to be worse cures than the disease, except perhaps that JavaScript doesn't work (by my choice or by limitation, sorry, "bug") in most browsers that I use. But if you like that stuff, the Free Nodelet is there for you.

I'd be for adding the target= "fix" to PerlMonks but we'd probably have to make it a user setting (default it on, however) as there are too many members with irrational hatred for target=. I'd also make comment on to, when it doesn't find a valid preview, load or link to site documentation that SiteDocClan can wordsmith explaining how you might have gotten there without a preview, why a new window may have just opened up, how to disable this protection, etc.

Not a bug.

PEBCAK

While I would never rule out the possibility of my own error, this one seemed like a real bug.