'Draft of' question

Hi everyone

Just a curious question. I often discover in searches that I have inadvertently created several ‘Draft of new tiddler’ tiddlers despite having saved my edits successfully to the actual tiddlers. I think maybe I have even found ‘Draft of tiddler x’ tiddlers after I have successfully edited and saved tiddler x.

I am wondering

a) why that happens,
b) why editing tiddler x, and saving it again, does not eliminate the previous blank ‘Draft of tiddler x’ tiddler.

The reason for the second question is because my understanding is that when you edit a tiddler, you create a ‘Draft of’ version again. So one would think that this new draft would overwrite and delete the previous draft.

I hope I am explaining myself well enough. Not a burning need on my part, so don’t drop what you are doing to answer this right away, but I would appreciate the explanation at some convenient time. Thanks!

Also, if I may ask, why do drafts sometimes appear at the bottom of the screen and sometimes not?

Yeah, if it is saved with the title ‘Draft of tiddler x’ then this is not the same as ‘x’ nor the edit mode draft of ‘x’. If you edit ‘Draft of tiddler x’ then it’ll be titled ‘Draft of tiddler ’Draft of tiddler x’’ or some such, so it is another tiddler.

But why this occasionally happens to begin with is a bit unclear to me also.

Awfully drafty in here occasionally. Make sure to shut your tiddlers properly, will you dear?

But can we agree ?- although somewhat confusing… I have yet to lose a tiddler.

@DaveGifford

a/b) I think the cause is there is a list of tiddlers you use that does not display existing draft.of tiddlers so it gives you the opportunity to open and edit the same tiddler again. The additional draft tiddlers should have another “n” at the end of the title (from memory) eg Draft of tiddler x N

If you look at the OPEN tab in the side bar, you can see that when an open item is edited the list displays the draft tiddler and hides the original title, thus from the Open tab you can open the samer tiddler if it has a draft. Because the open tab is “sourced and sorted by place in the story”, the order does not change.

Eg : The open tiddlers list.

<$list filter="[list<tv-story-list>]" history=<<tv-history-list>> storyview="pop">
...
</$list>

I think most users write lists they use, without building in the logic to deal with draft tiddlers and inadvertently can cause the problem you are experiencing.

The solution?

We need to develop an appropriate “code pattern” to share that helps lists that do not introduce this problem. Starting with but not limited to !has[draft.of]

I have returned to this and here is one way to replicate the problem, more questions and a possible solution.

To attempt to replicate on TiddlyWiki.com

  • Create a “New Tiddler” and save
  • Now edit the “New Tiddler”
  • While still editing go to the “Recent Tab” and select the original title “New Tiddler”
    • not the “Draft of ‘New Tiddler’”
    • “New Tiddler” opens in the story at the same time as “Draft of ‘New Tiddler’”
      • I will call this the “Original tiddler”
  • Now click edit on “New Tiddler” and it closes and the current draft is “scrolled to”.
  • While still editing go to the “Recent Tab” and select the original title “New Tiddler”
    • not the “Draft of ‘New Tiddler’”
    • “New Tiddler/original tiddler” opens in the story at the same time as “Draft of ‘New Tiddler’”
    • But this time use the more dropdown and clone “NewTiddler”

You will now have in the story;

Draft of 'New Tiddler 1' by visitor
New Tiddler
Draft of 'New Tiddler' by visitor

Notes

  • When listing tiddlers it is easy to create a link which will also open the original tiddler while a draft is ALSO open in the story
    • editing this extra tiddler by default opens the one currently in draft and hides the original in the story
      • This is working OK so how do the extra drafts arise? See below using clone.
    • Does this mean we should look at improving the link mechanism to locate and open the draft?
  • If you have both the draft and the original tiddler open, then clone the original tiddler it can look as if you have two drafts of the same tiddler
    • But this is misleading you have a draft of the original and a clone of the original in draft even though you have not yet saved the clone.

Can you reproduce this any other way?

Here is a button I created that demonstrates the use of the following filter
[all[tiddlers]draft.of<currentTiddler>else<currentTiddler>]which navigates to a draft.of the current tiddler if it exists, and it is used to set the tooltip in this example.

<$button tooltip={{{ [all[tiddlers]draft.of<currentTiddler>then[draft tiddler exists]else[no current draft]] }}} 
   to={{{ [all[tiddlers]draft.of<currentTiddler>else<currentTiddler>] }}} class="tc-btn-invisible">
{{$:/core/images/warning}} 
</$button>

Now the following button which does not use this filter, will if used on the “original tiddler” will only navigate to the original tiddler and is not aware of the draft tiddler.

<$button to=<<currentTiddler>> class="tc-btn-invisible">
{{$:/core/images/warning}} std
</$button>
  • Perhaps this is another opportunity to mess this up?

Right.

I never found it a fatal issue. Merely slightly confusing as I don’t grasp the logic of how it happens.

What do I do? Delete the apport “Drafts” :slight_smile:

TT

A very good question I think!

TBH, I rarely click them when present because the behaviour is not consistent.
I don’t understand the logic of when they are there and when they aren’t.
I simply don’t understand having them unless they always appear in a consistent way???

Just a comment
TT

If a tiddler is in edit mode, but not visible in the story river, the red “marker” is shown at the bottom of the screen. So it’s easy to open them, without the need to search for “Draft of” tiddlers in the Recent tab.

This feature was added to avoid data loss. Some users edited many tiddlers, but didn’t save them for a long time, which could lead to data loss if users ignored an overwrite warning.

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Mario, @pmario

I caused this old thread to become more active by adding my information. Could you provide the steps to replicate this on tiddlywiki.com if possible.

I am revisiting this issue to try and put this issue to bed.

I think it’s perfectly fine to have "Draft of 'New Tiddler'" and "Draft of 'New Tiddler 1'", if both are in edit mode.

That’s not the problem described in the OP.

I think the “clone” step in your workflow is not the cause of the problem described in the OP. … I actually don’t know, how to reproduce that problem.

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The draft clone case is similar to one of the observations earlier. It was an avenue towards what some observe. I am not saying that is the exact cause.

A recent reply of mine points out how to get the original and a draft in the story at the same time, although the edit button resolves this

I suspect there is or was a way to put the original tiddler also into edit mode.

I am exploring now because I have being closer to this subject of late. Perhaps some customisation or design approach bypasses the regular behaviour.

You are understanding it right. … I think that’s an “edge case bug”, since atm no one seems to have a workflow to replicate it. …

Do you use a single file wiki or a Node.js client-server configuration with a wiki folder?

Hi Tones and people replying to Tones

Thanks for the work on this. Here are my comments:

  1. I was not asking the OP out of a personal need. It was not causing problems for me, only a minor annoyance. I just wanted you all to be aware the behavior exists, and, if you had seen it and knew what was going on, I was curious for the answer.

  2. I was seeing the behavior in this file, done as a single file wiki: Dictionary article organizer —.

  3. Process: Create new tiddler. Add information. Hit save changes. Because of slow response time, I was sometimes creating the next new tiddler while the first one was saving. So maybe something like what Tones described was happening.

  4. Solution I used was to search for ‘draft’ and then open those tiddlers and rename them and use them.

I am on vacation in the northern Lower peninsula of Michigan, so if you ask me further questions my response time will be slow. Blessings,

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