Web Apps

"Think before you post"
OK, right, no problem. But it seems the outgame API forums won't let us think too long about what we're typing before the session times out and logs you off.

I was typing a semi-long post in the General(Arispotle) section, then hit "Submit" and landed on the login page. Discovered seconds later that my post hadn't been submitted. Hitting "Previous Page" led me to an empty text box.

Is typing a message interpreted as inactivity ? Is there a way to disable this automatic log-off by checking a "Keep me logged in, dammit !" box somewhere in my preferences. (In other words, implement it. Pretty please ?)

Up to now, I've been very impressed by the speedy progress of the dev team working on these API forums. But the Auto log-off thingy is ANNOYING !

At least, now I can hit the Preview button every 2 paragraph so the server knows I'm still there. But I happen to be distracted quite often and am affraid that it won't solve my problem if I happen to hit the preview button after an undetermined amount of time that happens to be too long for the server's taste and land on the login page again... *insert frown here*

Your favourite forum addict,
Sherkalyn

Sherk, the server doesn't know that you are typing anything. That's all happening in your browser, on your computer. Until you send something to the server, it knows nothing about what you are doing.

The session that stores your login and such has a timeout so that the server memory doesn't fill up over time with thousands and thousands of stale sessions.

However, if your session expires before you can finish a nice long post, perhaps the powers that be should bump up the session timeout a bit longer. Say, an hour or two? That should still keep the stale sessions down to something manageable, while not producing the frustration of lost work.

Alternatively, using database stored sessions instead of in-memory sessions, with a cookie to store your "stay logged in" preference, might be an option - but I'm not sure about how that would play with the in-game browser.

I recommend typing long forum posts in a text editor (notepad, VIM, what-have-you) and pasting them into a fresh response form. And yes, I learned that the hard way, as usual.

Sure, but it's possible to use JavaScript's XMLHttpRequest to process some requests every X minutes to keep the connection open while typing a message.
Pfff, vim sucks, emacs rox :D

[quote=Kerdiran (Arispotle)]
Heretic!

Certainly, but don't forget that this forum is intended to operate in the in-game browser as well as out-of-game, so simple is good. That's not a bad principle in any case.

Regarding vi v. emacs: Either one makes mincemeat of notepad. And I actually use SciTE most often.

Thanks for the report,

We increased the session timeout to 2 hours instead of 24 minutes. You should now have more time to write your long post!