Feature: Save but not post

Sometimes I'm writing a long post and can't finish. It'd be nice to have a way to save a post that is invisible and doesn't show up as a post. Kind of like a draft post feature.

Totally exists. Thanks to the miracle efforts of Doctors Copy and Paste, you too can experience the wonders of immortal text! Act now, and save!

Well I alternate posting between my phone, home computer, and work computer lol. It'd be great to pick up on a different machine than the one I started on.

I use a character sheet for this purpose, to move posts between devices. :D Maybe it might work as a temporary solution for you too.

I have a game just for that, to post unfinished posts in.
And to test new dice code and stuff

Sounds like a lot of people can use this feature :D

I use another game or Microsoft Cloud. It would be a nice feature though.

You could also use placeholder posts and keep the text hidden until you're ready for the big reveal...

Not if your fellow player is also GM, which is the only case in which I have ever needed this feature. I also really don't like placeholder posts personally 😅

But that will create a notification and get the players' hopes up lol.

Those sound like "bowl" problems. =]

Then perhaps track the draft elsewhere, as suggested. :) (When I use placeholders, the rest is generally coming along minutes later. I would be annoyed by placeholders in place for long periods of time too.)

Long enough for me to see it and get disappointed 😁

The only issue I have with posting my post elsewhere and then copypasting into the right thread later is that for some reason, my phone won't let me copy something longer than a certain word count from GP. It's not an issue elsewhere, like when I save my post on Whatsapp instead, just on GP for some reason.

Sure it's a solution, but it's cumbersome lol. The point of the post is not to find a solution that's possible, but to add a useful feature to GP. The fact that so many people propose very different solutions shows it would be a useful feature to have :)

We have the private note now, though I found out that still creates an empty post. If it could be tweaked to not show up at all if you aren't mentioned, then it could be what nezzraj is looking for. With the "This is a minor edit" check box it could work. But players still get a new post warning.

Still wouldn't help with withholding the post from GMs

that ☝️

If you are the GM of all GMs. then you can just sneakingly kick them out of GMing like I do with bowl 😈

I'm just saying, if we're already talking about a potential new feature, maybe it should be useful for more cases than just "I am the one and only GM of this game". What about shared GMing games? What about a one on one game where you just both have the rights? What if you're a player? Why should a solution not also help in those situations but only for single GMs?

I support Nezz's idea, especially if it could include the ability for GM's to lock dice rolls into the draft as well.

Some suggestions I see here is using notes to hide the content until you can finish it.

I'm not a fan of that method because it ruins the "new post" flag on an empty post. Then when I go in and finish it, there's no notification to my players.

Same happens when i put my posts together that involve rolls. I often want to use the roll result to influence what my post says, but i dont want to post too early and run the risk of my players checking the new post, seeing its empty and forgetting to come back later. So I write up as much as i can, leaving gaps, post with the roll, then go in and edit as quick as i can.

Maybe thats just me though - I habitually refresh and rely on new post flags to alert me to a game.

A draft feature would let me work on a post over the course of the day, bouncing between mobile and PC, get everything in order, then post precisely when I'm done, even days later, 2ith a nice, crisp notification attached to it.

I agree pretty much with C1nder's points.
This is why I dislike "more to come" type posts. I open the thread and find nothing inside and then often don't see the finished post (and even if I do, the initial opening is still disappointing). I guess the major edit option takes care of the "no notification to my players later" problem, but I never use that one, even if appropriate, because it also sends out a ping and I don't like that 😅
I have actually on occasion when including a dice roll into a post written up the text for both outcomes so I can very quickly paste one in after initially posting. But that's not a great solution...
I've also occasionally as a player been not sure whether a GM post is finished or if more is coming, so I've written up a reply that was then invalidated by something that was added later to the initially posted version, or had to either wait for an hour or so or ask in ooc to avoid this issue. Some option to see your rolls before posting, even if turned off by default, would be amazing

Yes this is a nice summary of all the points the feature could help with.

You could post as much you know is happening (even if it is just a roll) and then make a new post with the outcome based on that roll. Not only does this new post remove the problem of people not hearing about the change, it also puts the roll that determined the fiction before the fiction so a reader does not end up wondering "why are they saying they failed" only to see the roll later that make the fail happen.
There is always the chance that someone was quicker than you. Then they have to carefully parse the text to see what changed.

Exactly. And that's why making two posts is also not a great solution

Really? They read one, can see from that that something more is needed and incoming, and then see that another post has been made with the new information, and there is no ambiguity since nothing changed in the first post and the second post make sense as a continuation. The only problem I have seen with this approach is when players worry that making two posts in a row is somehow 'rude'.

Anyway, this is getting off-topic from drafts. :)

Well, it has the exact same problem you described that editing has in that players might respond before the edit or second post is done (or start their response).

The only positive that two posts has to editing is that players don't receive a ping on their front page (can we just disable major edit pings, please?)

But yes, this is getting off topic.

A way to save drafts and access between different devices: Yes!
A way to see your rolls before you post: Yes!!

The first post can make it clear that there is more incoming.

We already have a note tag which hides the post from everyone but the GM. It seems that the easiest approach (and may Adam smite me if I'm wrong) would just be to add say... a [draft] tag that hides it from everyone who's not you.

As a bonus, the otherwise empty post could show DRAFT to everyone else to let them know you're working on a post.

The new post notification could be problematic, but it could also be as easy as copying the post to a new post and deleting the old one. NOt sure if that's automatable...

(or perhaps flag a post with [draft] in it not to generate a new post notification until it's removed? >__> )

Then why not write it in a private thread (in ones' own game) and then copy/paste it into the game when ready? That solves the problem of notifications and people responding before it is ready, and already works and is being used (here and in all other forums everywhere).

Agreed. At the moment, I use a private thread in a private game for this. The idea of a draft feature would be not to have to copypaste this.
An initial post before you edit it can do the same

This would really be great if it's possible to implement. Also, it was earlier mentioned that adding a note as a GM to yourself creates an empty post. I tack my private note to myself onto the end of my previous post so that doesn't happen. There is then no sign of a private note. Not ideal but it works.

Still doesn't work if other GMs are around (though I guess they don't get a notification, so they wouldn't think to look). And it doesn't get rid of the copypasting issue. In that case, just posting it in a private thread first still seems like the best option.

Yeah tough.