mahara-contributors team mailing list archive

[Gordon McLeod <1112546@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Public bug reported:

New Feature Request

Hi, one of the most common complaints from our users is that they spend
time writing long journal entries only to have the work lost when they
try to post - reason is that they've exceeded the inactive timeout
period, in our case 70 minutes. I've spent a couple of years trying to
get them to adopt a best practice of 'short but often', and the
dashboard of our site specifically states in large bold letters to save
journal entries within an hour or you will lose the work. Unfortunately
they are used to MS Word with autosave feature and many users don't get
the difference between that and a web based resource.

Would it be possible to add a small widget/block to the interface with a
'countdown' clock that pulls it's base value from the site timeout
setting, and resets whenever the user clicks a button, etc to let Mahara
know they are still active? This could be made even more obvious if the
block flashed or turned red within 5 minutes of timing out to remind the
user to save their work immediately.

An alternative - though perhaps more draconian - solution might be to
auto-force a 'save as draft' of the current post if the user is within 1
minute of timing out.

Regards, Gordon.

** Affects: mahara
     Importance: Undecided
         Status: New

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1112546

Title:
  Post timeout countdown display

Status in Mahara ePortfolio:
  New

Bug description:
  New Feature Request

  Hi, one of the most common complaints from our users is that they
  spend time writing long journal entries only to have the work lost
  when they try to post - reason is that they've exceeded the inactive
  timeout period, in our case 70 minutes. I've spent a couple of years
  trying to get them to adopt a best practice of 'short but often', and
  the dashboard of our site specifically states in large bold letters to
  save journal entries within an hour or you will lose the work.
  Unfortunately they are used to MS Word with autosave feature and many
  users don't get the difference between that and a web based resource.

  Would it be possible to add a small widget/block to the interface with
  a 'countdown' clock that pulls it's base value from the site timeout
  setting, and resets whenever the user clicks a button, etc to let
  Mahara know they are still active? This could be made even more
  obvious if the block flashed or turned red within 5 minutes of timing
  out to remind the user to save their work immediately.

  An alternative - though perhaps more draconian - solution might be to
  auto-force a 'save as draft' of the current post if the user is within
  1 minute of timing out.

  Regards, Gordon.

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