The way saving works currently is unsafe. If you hit back (or in some browsers if backspace registers as hitting back), then the site loses everything you have entered since the last time you hit save. Hitting save exits edit mode and you have to re-enter it to continue, making hitting it obsessively (as you might in older MS word) non-viable as you keep losing your place and train of thought. The site doesn't have any protection against such deletions (such as a popup warning you you are going to lose stuff if you leave the page). Publishing should exit edit mode, but saving is a routine task we should be able to do periodically precisely so everything doesn't get lost if something goes wrong. This needs to be rectified. At the least, there needs to be a popup that can stop you from doing this by accident. Autosaving periodically would also be handy, but this might be too harsh on the server. Alternately, the way saving works could be amended, so the save button is in the right sidebar and hitting it just saves things without having to exit and reenter the screen. I have personally lost several hours of work to this happening. It needs to be addressed before I will do anything more. I do not have the time or the energy to repeatedly redo the same , never mind that in all likelihood every time I redo it, it gets worse because I am rushing to 'get it over with' so I can write the genuinely new things. Using Firefox or Chrome.
To resolve the issue on your end, you can get plugins that will allow you to manually set a popup for that screen. Otherwise, you can write into Notepad or Word or their ilk, save it to your hard drive, and copy and paste it into CHYOA when you're ready to publish. This topic has been discussed before. Unfortunately, in terms of the way the site works, it seems that the instant, unpreventable deletion is not a mistake in the interface design, but a deliberate choice. This means that it'll never get fixed, because in the eyes of administration, it's a feature, not a bug. It's a real shame, because this issue is perhaps the most inconvenient aspect of CHYOA for authors right now.
I'm not "administration" and just express my own opinion. While I'm helping with programming, I'm not the one who decides what gets implemented and what doesn't. If CHYOA had a pop-up that prevented me from closing the site in an instant, I certainly wouldn't be here. (At least if the popup was there by default.) On Chrome, I use LockIt! and have no bad experiences with it. When you try to reload or leave a tab from certain websites, you get asked for confirmation. (After installation you might need to reopen the browser. If you use incognito mode, you have to activate it for incognito. There is a little padlock icon... it must be activated only once and then works for all tabs from the same (sub)domain. You might want to test it a few times before working with it anyway.)
I realize everyone uses the site in their own way, and this may not be workable in some situations, but... have you considered doing your writing in a separate text-editing app, and then copying-and-pasting to the site once you're ready to post?
Partial solution: https://www.laptopmag.com/articles/disable-backspace-chrome-ie-firefox Regarding gene.sis concerns: it should absolutely be an option if a popup is used, not a requirement. I understand some people need to make a quick exit. If a popup does exit, it should be asked about during account creation other wise people won't know the option exists (like that backspace fix in FF that is super well hidden). This is partially why i suggested some for of autosaving; this retains the quick exit while ensuring doing so is non-destructive.
I posted about this awhile ago too (https://forum.chyoa.com/threads/confirmation-before-exiting-tab-browser-when-typing-chapter.1792/), not sure CHYOA is going to see changes any time soon.
I just lost another hour of work when the web page faulted on me hitting save draft. We need periodic autosaving. At least if a fault happens then, the last good copy is still there, or if it happens right when you start you haven't done much yet. Not a browser issue this time; the site itself had an error on using the save function.
