Form autosave

[Al Fi]

It would be possible to have an update of this extension? It still works on Safari 7/8, but not for all sites. It's really very useful extension, whereas Lazarus no longer works since the days of Safari 6.

[Canisbos Computing]

Hi,

It's been a long time since I've used Form Autosave myself. I can try to fix it, but I need some help from you. Can you give me a few examples of specific forms where it doesn't work? I need to see what is going on with some actual forms where the extension fails. Please provide full URLs or precise directions to reach the example forms.

Thanks,

Chul

On Sat, Dec 13, 2014 at 12:46 AM, Al Fi <alt...@gmail.com> wrote:

It would be possible to have an update of this extension? It still works on Safari 7/8, but not for all sites. It's really very useful extension, whereas Lazarus no longer works since the days of Safari 6.

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[Al Fi]

Here are some examples, It doesn't work at the following links: 

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/6590946

http://www.imaccanici.org/forum/posting.php?mode=reply&f=36&t=31563

But there are many other sites like Youtube, Vimeo, Deviantart, Instagram and almost every form of community response. Unfortunately, there are very few examples of sites where the extension is still able to work. I'm ignorant on the subject, but I think it's a problem of compatibility with the new standard web sites and versions of vBulletin, html, css, js...

Here it works

http://www.hwupgrade.it/forum/showthread.php?p=41905547#post41905547

Specifically where it doesn't work, there is missing items on the contextual menu.

Thanks in advance, I appreciate your interest.

[Al Fi]

The sites where the extension works are very few like this for example 

http://www.hwupgrade.it/forum/newthread.php?do=newthread&f=75

On others like the Apple community, YouTube, Vimeo or DeviantArt it doesn't work. I'm ignorant on the subject, but I think it depends on a problem with web standards, html, css, js and vbulletin, more update than the extension.

Specifically, in the forms of the sites where the extension doesn't work, missing item from the context menu.

Thanks in advance for your interest.

[Canisbos Computing]

It would be very helpful if you would give me at least one URL of a form where it does NOT work. 

Thanks. 

[Al Fi]

For instance this one and I add a screenshot

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/6725032

[Canisbos Computing]

I see the problem with the example page you gave. Regrettably, I am unable or unwilling to make the extension work on that page or ones like it.

Normal web forms have a limited number of types of "elements" or "inputs" represent things like boxes for typing text, check boxes, selection menus, etc. (These elements have names like "input", "textarea", "select", and so forth.) The types of elements that can be in a form is standardized.

My extension works by detecting changes in the content or state of these standard form elements. When the content or state of one of these elements changes, the extension saves the new content or state on your computer, so that if you come back to the same form, it can refill it with the same values.

The page that you linked to, which is for composing a reply to a discussion, does not use one of the standard form elements to provide the box where you type your message. Instead, it uses a piece of software called TinyMCE, which provides a rich editor supporting things like font styles and bulleted lists. The box that you type into is not a standard form control, and furthermore it is inside an iframe, so technically it's not even on the same web page. 

There is, in fact, a textarea element that the TinyMCE editor will put the contents of your message into when you click Reply. Unfortunately, this textarea does not get updated when you click outside it (or "blur" it), as normal textareas do. Thus, my extension is not able to save its contents.

The reason I wrote "unable or unwilling" is because, yes, with sufficient effort, it would be possible to support pages like this. But it's more effort than what I'm willing to put in. The problem is that there are too many variables; it would be virtually impossible to make the extension work as expected in all cases.

In fact, there are now many such non-standard forms on the web. The impossibility of supporting all of them (with reasonable effort) is the reason I no longer have a link to Form Autosave on my web site.

I'm sorry.

Chul

[Al Fi]

Unfortunately, I don't know why, but in the latest versions of Safari, Lazarus no longer works too. Thanks anyway.