Save as Draft Feature Request

sei_gogone 2018-11-22 08:28:52 UTC #1

Honestly, I'm not sure where to put this, but I want to get this out of my brain that's running on little to no sleep.

One thing I think the website could benefit from is having a 'Save Draft'/'Save as Draft' feature. This would be great for episodes, yes, but also it could work for series that people are working on but don't want to publish yet. Because of the complexity of this feature, I imagine, it would mean that whatever URL they've chosen will be marked as 'claimed'. Or perhaps they get some seeded URL until they decide to publish (in which case, they have to make a personalised URL).

I don't know; I'm sure this has been mentioned long before myself, but I think about it a lot when it comes to creating new content here on the platform. And now, my dears, I must away to bed.

spicy_sweets 2018-11-22 08:29:34 UTC #2

THANK YOU

sei_gogone 2018-11-22 08:33:56 UTC #3

It's all I've ever wanted! (Well, that and the italics fixed.)

Yoon 2018-11-22 09:12:51 UTC #4

I'll talk with our product team for this. Thank you.

cookiety 2018-11-22 09:27:52 UTC #5

Yes!!! This would be great.

ar-ninetysix 2018-11-22 12:48:34 UTC #6

I'd actually joke around and say it's already there lol you could title it and everything, dude! Only downside is everybody in your audience will be able to see that you have drafts (but not the drafts themselves), so.. if you don't mind, then it's not an issue? In case you don't get what I mean, you can kinda use the schedule feature as a temporary fix for this lol

You could "save" your draft by publishing it for a very far off date, and give it a rather dull title to avoid any potential spoilers bc again, your audience will be able to see these along with regular episodes (by title only, but still). You could also come back to it later, and to "open" the draft, you can edit the scheduled episode. Then whenever the episode's ready, rename it and schedule it for like whenever it's supposed to come out. Your final edit, so to speak.

I've used the schedule feature like this for my novel series to spill my mind a few times, so I can vouch for my alternative way of using it lol

sei_gogone 2018-11-22 15:40:10 UTC #7

Hello! I think you misunderstood the point of my post. You wouldn't be using the schedule function because, as you said, everyone would see it. And the schedule function doesn't work when you're in the new series info screen.

With a draft, you wouldn't be able to see any episodes or series in progress. Otherwise, it would defeat the purpose of it being a draft. As I said in my post, This would be great for episodes, yes, but it could alsp work for series you don't want to publish yet.

Because even scheduling means that you're going to release it soon and it gives your readers something to look out for. The draft function would make this hidden to prevent mixups.

So in effect, it's for your eyes only. There would have to be a reasonable limit on series you could draft, of course, to prevent clutter, but that's overall what I meant.

ar-ninetysix 2018-11-22 15:54:50 UTC #8

Nah, I know what you exactly meant, I'm just saying you could use it as such since the feature hasn't been implemented yet lol far as a series itself goes.. well, yeah, that's entirely separate, that's why I didn't mention it in my comment. I can totally see what you mean by not hyping up readers, and having it be only for your own eyes. I just figure readers would be like "you publishing something all the way in 2023, wait, what??" with my method, but I don't care for screwing with people's minds like that, so maybe I'm the weird one here xD But yeah, I'm not saying that this is the definitive alternative to a draft, just that.. it can be done like that, if anyone wanted to "save" drafts for future episodes. Sorry for the misunderstanding~

I do agree though, a draft function on the level of episodes as well as series would be a pretty neat addition to have!

keii4ii 2018-11-22 16:02:59 UTC #9

My only concern is, limit the number of hidden series one person can have? It would be unfair for one person to squat on 20 different URLs, especially for URLs that may be desirable.

Actually, AFAIK readers can only see 1 scheduled episode in the episode list, whether you have 1 or 100. Only you can see all of them.

spicy_sweets 2018-11-22 16:05:12 UTC #10

Yup, that's right―readers only see one.

and that makes sense with the links! Altho I guess they can abbreviate it, or add a number on the end.

sei_gogone 2018-11-22 16:19:05 UTC #11

Honestly, the idea of that is hilarious. But s'all good! My apologies as well; good thing we can talk about these kinds of things, hahaha.

Yeah! In my reply to AR, I mentioned that there would have to be a reasonable limit per person to prevent squatting. but also in my original, I offered a solution that there could be a seeded URL (a random combination of numbers and letters) that would only exist for as long as the series is a draft). That way you can cut down on URL hoarders.

Also, I didn't know that they could only see one scheduled episode at a time! -thinking.- That gives me some interesting ideas for later.

ar-ninetysix 2018-11-22 16:19:06 UTC #12

Yeah, or even have it like.. You know how you click on the dashboard, and you click on a series to edit it? Well, it doesn't show the name of the series in the url when you do that, it shows a number instead. So, I'm thinking for an episode, they can add like a /draft/1 or something along those lines at the end of it, so as to not be hoarding valuable links.. it'll still have to take up something, but I mean.. better than nothing??