Lack of cancel button when canceling post or changing reply to a different topic

Feature
1

Steps to reproduce:

  1. Start replying to a topic (or post).
  2. Navigate to another topic.
  3. Hit the reply button (to topic or post).
    OR
    Hit the cancel button.

At this point, this popup appears:

image
image778×140 6.93 KB

Clicking “Yes, abandon” deletes the draft, clears the reply box, and changes the reply target (or closes the reply box if you clicked “cancel”). Clicking “No, save draft” keeps the draft, but still clears the reply box and changes the reply target (or closes the reply box if you hit “cancel”).

Is this behavior when clicking “No, save draft” a bug? I put this topic in feature because it wasn’t clear to me if this was intentional or not. If not, I guess it’s a bug. If it was intentional, I think there is a huge usability problem with this approach. Ideally, I think it should just retarget the draft when you click a new reply target (just like it would do if you clicked a new reply target within the same topic). But at a minimum, there should be a way to cancel the operation. Right now, the only way to cancel your action (that is, if you don’t want to clear the reply box) once the dialog has opened is to hit ESC, which of course doesn’t work on mobile. Clicking out of the dialog box also doesn’t cancel the operation, and there is no X or Cancel button available.

1 Like
2

This is your bug @sam

1 Like
3

This is tricky business. Current behvior is on-purpose.

There are 3 options I guess

  1. Re-target
  2. Abandon and start a new reply
  3. Save and start a new reply

At the moment re-targeting is not easy at all, that said… why would you be replying to one topic, then change your mind and want it to be a reply to a totally different topic?

Honestly I am not sure what we should do here. I guess we can change this to:

You are about to reply to a new topic.

[Save draft for later] [Use this draft as a reply]

What text to use here is tricky.

3 Likes
4

If it is super rare I favor ignoring it for now.

5

Sorry, ignoring what? You mean unconditionally re-targeting?

That means that if you mis-click reply to a diff topic when your composer is up (or even minimized) draft will go walkabouts to the new topic.

6

I mean doing nothing.

1 Like
7

My primary use for that is to quote something from one topic into another topic. I don’t do that often, but that’s the main use where I want to retarget.

That wasn’t what happened this time though. I think in this case I hit the reply button by accident and was annoyed that hitting the button that would usually mean “cancel operation” removed my reply from the composer.

Why do you have to ask the user whether or not they want to keep the draft? I think something like this would be simpler:

  1. Start new reply (this would automatically save the draft) OR Retarget draft to new topic/post. Whichever you guys prefer.
  2. Cancel

Your new proposal has the same problem I originally mentioned in that there’s no option to simply do nothing.

1 Like
8

@sam What were your thoughts on this?

1 Like
9

honestly, I am not sure, I guess we could add a cancel here, but then there are 3 things on the menu which is a lot to think about

2 Likes
10

Perhaps an X icon would be enough? Or clicking out of the dialog box to close it? Obviously there’s a lot to consider related to consistency with the rest of the application. Basically:

  • Do any other dialogs have three buttons?
  • Do any other dialogs have an X in the top corner to close the dialog?
  • Do any other dialogs close when you click/tap outside of the dialog?

I’m not sure what other options there are if you want to keep a button for clearing the composer while keeping the draft and clearing the composer while deleting the draft. Frankly, I’m still not sure why the latter is necessary.

1 Like