Offline draft editing

[+sloth96]

Howdy 

 

While on a flight, i edited some drafts in the geocaching app. I selected post and they disappeared from the list.  

 

When i reconnected to the internet they did not appear on geocaching.com as finds.

 

What was the correct workflow?

 

Thanks

[+Mineral2]

You should post them when you have connection to the server. You can edit and save drafts when you're not connected.

[+sloth96]

So basically I can't do log posting when offline and expect them to sync when I reconnect without going and manually touching each log?

[+Mineral2]

Correct. In theory, drafts will sync with the website once you're back online. In practice.... it hasn't been working that way. A draft saved while online will sync and you can access it from the website. A draft saved while offline is only available on your phone. But it's still there to either save again when you are online or simply post when you are online. 

See my post at the end of this thread for more explanation.

[+thebruce0]

However, if there's no signal, the drafts shouldn't get deleted and go poof, lost from the app. The app should simply alert and cancel the sync, so the user somehow doesn't lose their content. Is that what happened here? There's nothing more frustrating than that. One workaround is to compose text elsewhere and copy/paste it into the app if you're more concerned about losing it for whatever reason.

[+Mineral2]

1 hour ago, thebruce0 said:

However, if there's no signal, the drafts shouldn't get deleted and go poof, lost from the app. The app should simply alert and cancel the sync, so the user somehow doesn't lose their content. Is that what happened here?

If you attempt to submit a draft as a log when there is no signal, I believe the draft gets eaten in the process. If you're simply saving it, it remains in the app.

[+thebruce0]

5 minutes ago, Mineral2 said:

If you attempt to submit a draft as a log when there is no signal, I believe the draft gets eaten in the process. If you're simply saving it, it remains in the app.

Sure, and I'm saying the draft should not get eaten in the process if the submission fails due to lack of data signal; otherwise it's just tossing it out into the ether and hoping something catches it.  Instead the app should report "Couldn't upload draft" and offer to save it locally instead, not assume that it's been received and saved successfully and removing it from the app. I'd call that a definite bug; or at least a bad user experience.

If the app has no signal for whatever reason, it should know, either reporting a failed save and backing up, or disabling the ability that requires a signal.  Ideally the submission process should receive a 'success' confirmation and then remove the local copy of the draft.

[+Mineral2]

Ah, yeah. I mean, the same should happen if you attempt to post a log and the app can't communicate with the servers - it should get saved as a draft de facto. Unfortunately, the app doesn't do that.

[+thebruce0]

Another reason I only use it for messaging.