Lost drafts in iOS apps due to swipe-up gesture

Support
1

I’ve lost a few drafts using the iOS app since the interface update. This happens sometimes when I’m scrolling up and down among previous posts as I type, and accidentally trigger a gesture to swipe the whole forum down, returning me to the forum selection screen. When I open the forum again, no draft.

I’m guessing this is low-probability, high pain. It’s not happening constantly, but when it does, it’s not fun losing a draft. Especially a long one. Especially a long one that I typed out with my thumbs.

2

can you repro consistently? If you re enter the topic draft should reopen (also see drafts section in your user profile )

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3

Yeah did you try re-entering the topic? Unlikely it was actually lost. Try testing the scenario.

4

Yeah, I’ve been able to repel a few times. But it might be that I’m losing drafts that don’t reach the save timeout.

5

Drafts have to be over the minimum post character length to save (20 chars) and the automatic draft saves happen about every 60-90 seconds as I recall, I would need to check the code.

6

Roger that, but even if draft saving is fine, it’s annoying to be closing forums and losing my place all the time.

I do a lot of referring to prior posts when I write for Discourse. It happened again responding here.

7

We need specific repro steps. Or maybe don’t use the app, try without the app for a bit and see if things improve? I find the app just adds complexity, personally?

8

iOS 12.4.1 iPhone 6s

  1. Visit topic.

  2. Tap reply.

  3. Get both reply box and prior posts in view.

  4. Scroll posts up vigorously.

I don’t think your finger has to hit the title bar. Pressure sure I’ve repro’d just attempting to scroll posts.

9

So this is app specific, it’s interpreting your scrolling as an app gesture? Can you repro this in the Safari browser (no app)?

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10

The app does have a “swipe down to dismiss current screen” gesture. And I confirm, scrolling vigorously up and down does trigger the issue. Especially if scrolling from the top third of the screen downwards.

I will look into possible ways to address this. The gesture can be disabled, but it is useful, especially in cases where the current is unresponsive and the footer nav is not visible.

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11

Not following though, does it nuke a saved draft or simply dismiss the page?

12

I don’t think it’s possible it nukes a saved draft.

But I did notice today that the slide-down-to-dismiss gesture is a lot easier to invoke on an iPhone without a notch (6s, 7, 8) vs. one with a notch.

I think the easiest solution here is to remove the gesture for notchless iPhones.

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14

That sounds good to me!

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15

@kemitchell I have implemented a slightly different fix for this. On notchless iPhones the swipe-from-top-to-dismiss gesture is still active, but I modified its parameters to make it harder to trigger. Users now need to start the swipe higher, near the top 10% of the screen (by the Discourse page header) to invoke the gesture.

The fix is available in the beta version of the app (use this link to install the beta via TestFlight).

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