Live Preview Slowness

Live preview annoys me. I think there should be an option to have it.

Every time I try to type a comment, after a few words my typing gets slow -- I type and the words appear way after I type them.. I think this is because of live preview because I can see as I type on other websites, and I can see as I'm typing this right now..

I think there should be an option in Prefs to turn off live preview.. If I want to preview my post, I'll hit preview...

(BTW user-agent string: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.9b4pre) Gecko/2008022304 Firefox/2.0.0.11)

posted by majikstreet to feature requests at 12:47 PM (83 comments total)

Wow, what a crappily worded "request." Welcome to MetaFilter.

I've never had this problem with live preview, but in general, whenever I type and look at the screen, I see whatever it is I'm typing. It's a feature.
posted by OmieWise at 12:57 PM on March 11

How do you really feel, omie?
posted by Cranberry at 12:59 PM on March 11

You could turn off javascript.
posted by puke & cry at 1:01 PM on March 11

I have no cookies. Someone fix that for me.

I'M WAITING
posted by Plutor at 1:02 PM on March 11 [7 favorites]

I hate those little stringy things on bananas. They're like banana snots, amirite? Pls fix.
posted by Bernt Pancreas at 1:02 PM on March 11 [1 favorite]

Odd. I don't look at live preview as I type - I look at the box I'm typing in. When I'm done typing, I look at live preview. Then I usually hit preview, too, and then I hit post.

Like now.
posted by rtha at 1:05 PM on March 11

Kids on my lawn. I hate 'em.
posted by tommasz at 1:05 PM on March 11 [3 favorites]

Uhm, wow.. I was under the impression that people are actually nice here.. Five comments, one actual answer.

I'm sorry that I worded that awkwardly, but I really didn't have a good way to say it.

I've never had this problem with live preview, but in general, whenever I type and look at the screen, I see whatever it is I'm typing. It's a feature.
That's exactly what I mean. Why do we need a "Live Preview" box to show what can already be seen in the text box where you type..

I guess what I wrote was a little.. strange.. (Could you have worded it better?)
posted by majikstreet at 1:10 PM on March 11

Uhm, wow.. I was under the impression that people are actually nice here.

Whatever gave you that idea?
posted by nevercalm at 1:16 PM on March 11

I was under the impression that people are actually nice here.. Five comments, one actual answer.

I think you're confusing this site (which is MetaTalk) for AskMetaFilter, where people are nice and are required to be helpful in answering questions. Don't worry, you've only been here two months; you'll get the hang of it.

If I want to preview my post, I'll hit preview...

This is the part where I think you may not have the whole concept down yet.

Since you can't edit your posts, previewing is really important. Like, rilly rilly important. We'd all rather you did preview. It's not so much supposed to be opt-out.
posted by pineapple at 1:16 PM on March 11

It certainly helps me with my lazy, non-tag-validating, self. I kinda see it as daytime running lights; it's not actively evil (as far as I can tell) and it might actually be useful in certain situations.

But I want the little tag by "post comment" on Metatalk to say:
note: Everyone needs a bosom for a pillow.
posted by Bernt Pancreas at 1:17 PM on March 11 [1 favorite]

I haven't had slowness problems at all and preview is convenient for me, especially with HTML.
posted by StrikeTheViol at 1:18 PM on March 11

I was under the impression that people are actually nice here.

People are nice on AskMetafilter. People are not as nice in MetaTalk. MeTa is the "back room" and people can be quite rude here. Just try to ignore the rudeness.

Another option, if you want to ask a question of the moderators, is just to email them directly -- for things that don't require discussion by the community this is the way to go. Then you avoid opening yourself up to rudeness in MeTa.
posted by LobsterMitten at 1:18 PM on March 11

Could you scroll so the live preview box is off the bottom of the screen? Or type one word, hit 'preview,' and continue typing. That does away with it.

I never look anywhere near where I'm typing, myself. I'm not looking at the screen right now.
posted by frobozz at 1:19 PM on March 11

I get the lag too sometimes. When that happens, I just type faster and see if I can hit post before the whole comment loa
posted by klangklangston at 1:19 PM on March 11 [22 favorites]

Ah. Let me clarify what I mean..
When I type I'm not looking at live preview, I'm looking at the text box. After typing a bit I start seeing a lag in the letters appearing in the box. I believe that it is because of live preview. I do not notice it anywhere else, and when I was typing the post, I did not notice this lag. Also, live preview seems a bit redundant to me.. (Note to mathowie / jessamyn / cortex: I'm sorry if I seem like b3tch!)

Hopefully this made more sense.
posted by majikstreet at 1:20 PM on March 11

majikstreet, the nice people part of metafilter is on the green and sometimes the blue. This is the grouchy, snarky, tear-everyone-a-new-body-cavity section of the site. Rawwwr. So don't take it personal.
posted by madamjujujive at 1:22 PM on March 11

I'm sorry that I worded that awkwardly, but I really didn't have a good way to say it[...]Could you have worded it better?

"I think live preview is making my browser slow. Is anyone else having this problem...?"

"Is there any chance we could have a chance to opt-out of live preview?"

"Since we can preview manually if we want to, do we need to have live preview enabled for every user?"

"I love all the available options for how we can read the site. Is live preview something that we can turn off if we want?"
posted by OmieWise at 1:23 PM on March 11

people can be quite rude here. Just try to ignore the rudeness.

Or enjoy it.
posted by KokuRyu at 1:24 PM on March 11

This seems like a reasonable pony request. I never look at Live Preview either. I don't trust it.

*narrows eyes, looks warily at Live Preview*
posted by brain_drain at 1:25 PM on March 11 [1 favorite]

OmieWise: Ah, I get it. The OP is required to be nice and respectful, but the commenters are not. That doesn't seem fair, somehow.
posted by Melismata at 1:25 PM on March 11 [3 favorites]

Why do we need a "Live Preview" box to show what can already be seen in the text box where you type..
It attempts to render HTML as it will actually appear, so you see what the final product will be if you include formatting, links, and so on. I never liked it either, but have come to not like it with less active violence over time. If you really despise it, you can hit preview once and it will go right the fuck away.

Why have "live preview" when there's already a "preview" (and they do slightly different things?) It was supposed to alleviate server load, since hitting the preview button reloads the whole page in addition to whatever updates you've made to your comment-in-progress.

'course, at the time, just looking at the screen funny made the server die instantly, so there was a sort of "we'll try anything to increase stability" approach to things.
posted by Wolfdog at 1:26 PM on March 11

If you really despise it, you can hit preview once and it will go right the fuck away.

Agree. I love live preview, but if I hated it I would do that. Or write a GreaseMonkey script to edit it out.
posted by burnmp3s at 1:29 PM on March 11

Okay. So then your answers are:

1. It's not because of live preview.

2. It's not redundant, because it helps make sure this displays correctly.
posted by StrikeTheViol at 1:29 PM on March 11

OmieWise: Ah, I get it. The OP is required to be nice and respectful, but the commenters are not. That doesn't seem fair, somehow.

It doesn't seem fair that one should ask for a feature request politely?

Or, it doesn't seem fair that one tends to reap what they sow in MetaTalk, and a rude request is met with several responses making clear how rude it sounded?

(You'll notice I'm not complaining that my own rudeness was skewered by 1.)
posted by OmieWise at 1:31 PM on March 11

Melismata, as far as I see it, the OP isn't required to do anything. But when the OP comes in with a demanding, difficult to understand post, they are very likely to get snarking and mocking in return. Whereas if the OP has a request to make of the host of this party, and does it with a little friendliness and thankfulness, that will probably get them a lot further towards what they want. More flies with honey etc.

(on preview, what Omie says)
posted by mosessis at 1:34 PM on March 11

It doesn't seem fair that one should ask for a feature request politely? I don't think that I was that rude. I wasn't as polite as I could have been, but, really, I wasn't really rude.

Yes, I do see the reasons for having it.. I just think that it should be an opt-out thing..

And I'm fairly sure that it _is_ because of Live Preview because again, on pages without it, typing works fine.

I'm going to go try to write a greasemonkey script to remove it.. I'll share it here incase anyone else wants to get rid of live preview.
posted by majikstreet at 1:37 PM on March 11

2. It's not redundant, because it helps make sure this displays correctly.

Except there's also the Preview Button for that. So, yeah, redundant. Better, IMO, but, yeah, redundant. Redundancy is sometimes good.

(Personally, I'd prefer a mandatory preview like they've got over at MetaChat. I'm probably the only one.)
posted by Sys Rq at 1:39 PM on March 11

But when ~~the OP comes in with a demanding, difficult to understand post~~ anyone posts anything on MetaTalk, they are very likely to get snarking and mocking in return.

Fixed.
posted by burnmp3s at 1:40 PM on March 11

The best thing about live preview is that when you look at your logorrhea properly formatted and be-linked, etc., it looks Far More Serious than it does in your shitty fire-poop text box.

Perhaps you are even satisfied by the temporary appearance of your bitter snark, and can then delete it, reputation saved.

An unrelated question: Can admins see what we type into Live Preview?
posted by By The Grace of God at 1:42 PM on March 11 [4 favorites]

An unrelated question: Can admins see what we type into Live Preview?
I think they have stated in the past that previewed comments aren't kept around, but lordy, if it were me, I'd keep logs of that because you know there's gold in there.
posted by Wolfdog at 1:44 PM on March 11

Actually having live preview on the page, but not like actively updated, might be nice. So I click a "live preview" button and it doesn't take me to the preview page, it just shows me the live preview version of my text. Sort of a super-light-weight version of preview, with the really "live" part.

But anyway I don't have this problem, I can type at full speed with no noticable slowdown. I also just tested pasting 10k of text into the window and it parsed that like nobodies business.
posted by RustyBrooks at 1:46 PM on March 11

An unrelated question: Can admins see what we type into Live Preview?

That would be awesome because a form of therapy for me is to write what I'd REALLY like to say into the window and then not post it.
posted by RustyBrooks at 1:47 PM on March 11

So to recap for the original poster: Hit preview before you even start typing. Then type your comment - there will be no live preview box. Hit preview again or not, but please do.

Wolfdog with the win. I hadn't thought of that solution. By now, though, I'm used to live preview anyway.
posted by ctmf at 1:48 PM on March 11

An unrelated question: Can admins see what we type into Live Preview?

No. Plus, we dont care to.

Does anyone else have live preview slowdown? I'm wondering if it has to do with some spellchecking thing because for me it's always been instant.
posted by jessamyn at 1:50 PM on March 11

It is pretty distracting having everything you type appearing on screen twice over, but it's not exactly an effort to scroll about a bit so that Live Preview is obscured. I'd probably use a Greasemonkey script to make it go away if someone made one, though.

Does anyone else have live preview slowdown?

Yeah, occasionally Live Preview makes things a bit sluggish for me in the way majikstreet describes, but only on my very underpowered laptop computer, and only when I have twenty or more tabs open in Firefox.
posted by jack_mo at 2:06 PM on March 11

Does anyone else have live preview slowdown?

I've never had a problem with lag when typing up comments EXCEPT when I'm trying to comment on a page that already has a ton of posts. But I'm using a spectacularly old and weak computer (I love it so much*) so I think that's just a problem on my end and nothing to do with live preview.

*That's not sarcasm. I really do love this old shitty thing. It's been the best computer I've ever had.
posted by LeeJay at 2:07 PM on March 11

Yep, on firefox the live preview occasionally stutters. You type for a few seconds and then the characters show up all at once. Maybe it does have to do with tabs as jack_mo says.
posted by kuujjuarapik at 2:10 PM on March 11

It's always been fine for me, and my laptop is an aged piece o' crap. I'm one who's wishing that live preview didn't go away after a hard preview, actually. MORE live preview, please!
posted by mumkin at 2:10 PM on March 11

That's the first time I've ever been FTFYed! I think I'm going to go have a cookie in celebration. Anyone up for chocolate chip cookies?
posted by mosessis at 2:21 PM on March 11 [1 favorite]

live preview is neither.
posted by quonsar at 2:25 PM on March 11 [1 favorite]

Anyone up for chocolate chip cookies?

There is never, ever a bad time for chocolate chip cookies. Can you post a live preview of the dough please?
posted by cashman at 2:26 PM on March 11

We'll add a "hide" option for live preview (not in preferences, directly on the page).

It kind of does slow down older computers (my old g4 powerbook would grind slowly when typing long comments) and I had meant to add a show/hide option for it back then, but I sold the laptop and got a faster computer and promptly forgot.

Expect to see a hide option later today, thanks for the suggestion.
posted by mathowie at 2:29 PM on March 11

Awww.

Metafilter should help drive adpotion of better hardware. For the good of the ecosystem.
posted by jeffamaphone at 2:30 PM on March 11

mathowie for the "how to be gracious" win.
posted by Wolfdog at 2:31 PM on March 11 [5 favorites]

Ok, the feature should be there now.
posted by mathowie at 2:41 PM on March 11

I sent Matt some JavaScript way back in March of 2006 that would filter out unacceptable tags from Live Preview so it more realistically reflected what would be posted. I just looked at the JavaScript and it made me cry. Bad Plutor. Bad coder. No cookies.
posted by Plutor at 2:44 PM on March 11

Just make the preview buttom more AJAXy. Then there's no need to reload the page.
posted by blue_beetle at 2:49 PM on March 11

Hmm... Hiding the live preview sends me to the Metafilter main page. Is that a subtle way of telling me 'If you're not going to preview, don't comment'?
posted by Memo at 2:54 PM on March 11

"mathowie for the "how to be gracious" win."

Wolfdog for the how-to-kiss-ass win.

I'm kidding.

Mostly. Why is "providing a neutral, administrative and technical answer to the OP's question" gracious, particularly? Is zero-snark the new grace?

the site is doomed, get me my coat I'm outta here...
posted by pineapple at 2:57 PM on March 11

If you type in a comment, then hit (Hide), it wipes out your comment.

Just a tip for persons who might type out a doctoral thesis and then decide they want to turn off live preview.
posted by yhbc at 2:58 PM on March 11

jessamyn: Does anyone else have live preview slowdown? I'm wondering if it has to do with some spellchecking thing because for me it's always been instant.

I have a very very small amount of slowdown here sometimes, barely noticeable for me. But on the -ist sites (particularly Consumerist) it can take a minute or more for the text box to catch up to my typing, and often at that point it's missed words or parts of words. (I've only commented there two or three times, as I'm not a regular reader, but it was the same every time.) So I do think it's possible that this could happen for people here, I just don't know what the factors involved would be.
posted by loiseau at 3:08 PM on March 11

Hm, I don't have slowdown in the textbox while typing, but if I use HTML, there's a bit o' lag in Live Preview.

(Shit, Hiding Live Preview is confusing at first. I was typing my original comment, then hit Hide Preview, and it reloaded the page with no Live Preview, but my comment was gone. :<!)
posted by booticon at 3:15 PM on March 11

If you type in a comment, then hit (Hide), it wipes out your comment.

pb's working on a fix for that at this very moment.
posted by mathowie at 3:21 PM on March 11

I added a confirm to the Hide and Show Preview links that lets you know your comment will be wiped out and gives you a chance to cancel.
posted by pb at 3:24 PM on March 11

When I clicked the "Hide" option I got logged out.
posted by brain_drain at 3:35 PM on March 11

Although now that I'm logged back in, the Live Preview remains hidden.

Buuuut, the "Post Comment" button was missing until I hit "Preview".
posted by brain_drain at 3:37 PM on March 11

Buuuut, the "Post Comment" button was missing until I hit "Preview".

Right, it's back to how the forms worked, looked, and functioned before we brought live preview in. Everyone used to have to preview to make sure HTML worked and stuff, I only added the direct Post button when live preview was added.

Forcing a preview of one sort (live or server-side) saves a boatload of admin headaches and probably snuffs a lot of reactionary comments as well, so that's why the post button disappears if you haven't previewed yet.
posted by mathowie at 3:42 PM on March 11

MetaFilter: a boatload of admin headaches.
posted by Duncan at 3:51 PM on March 11 [1 favorite]

It's not nearly as bad as blogger, which has such a huge fucking lag that my ADD brain can't even remember what the hell I was on about when I started typing. It's like hiding your own easter eggs.
posted by klangklangston at 3:52 PM on March 11 [1 favorite]

Come to think of it, I don't actually use the preview button to preview my comment; I use it to preview the thread.

It would be great if, upon discovering (nearly always) that someone has already said what I was going to say, I still had a live preview for my new, un-redundant comment.
posted by Sys Rq at 4:04 PM on March 11

Being broke annoys me. I think there should be an option to have me not be broke.

Every time I try to type a comment, I don't make any money -- I type and the money doesn't appear. I think this is because of the lack of a button to disable live preview and send money to my paypal account because I make lots of money when I type on other websites, and I can see that I'm not making any money as I'm typing this right now..

I think there should be an option in Prefs for everyone to turn off live preview and send me money.. If I want to not make money, I'll hit preview...
posted by SteveTheRed at 4:08 PM on March 11

yay! thanks mathowie! I was actually working on a greasemonkey script but since I've never made one before it was taking me a while..
posted by majikstreet at 4:31 PM on March 11

Isn't the existing Preview button a somewhat superior (in that it only destroys formatting, not text, and doesn't need a confirmation step) Hide Preview?
posted by flabdablet at 4:47 PM on March 11

Melismata writes "The OP is required to be nice and respectful, but the commenters are not. That doesn't seem fair, somehow."

More than on any of the other subsites the tone of the OP often sets the one for the whole thread on MetaTalk. I'f you're feeling like being snarked to death then post a Meta that is snarky, or demanding, or ignorant or better yet all three.

jessamyn writes "Does anyone else have live preview slowdown? I'm wondering if it has to do with some spellchecking thing because for me it's always been instant."

Happens to me sometimes when I've got a gazillion tabs open. But only for a short period of time.
posted by Mitheral at 5:04 PM on March 11

Since you can't edit your posts, previewing is really important. Like, rilly rilly important. We'd all rather you did preview. It's not so much supposed to be opt-out.

It would be rilly rilly important if it was rilly rilly accurate. But it aint rilly rilly accurate, so it aint rilly rilly important.
posted by mattoxic at 6:12 PM on March 11

Nice one! I assume it stays hidden for ever and ever? Guess I'll find out in a mo.
posted by jack_mo at 6:40 PM on March 11

You can restore it by clicking on the opposite, but still comment-destroying link. Good deal here - it's not often that you get to make both sides of an argument happy. Also good that I didn't get here early enough to join the snark-fest, I guess.
posted by dg at 6:43 PM on March 11

I assume it stays hidden for ever and ever?

It stays hidden as long as you have the hide_live_preview cookie set. So you'll need to hide it for each machine/browser combo you use.
posted by pb at 6:50 PM on March 11

This started off a little badly, but now I think we need to all stand in a circle, turn to our left, and then give the person in front of us a nice pat on the back. Job well done, team, in rescuing this MeTa thread from where it might have gone.

{hugs}
posted by Nick Verstayne at 7:08 PM on March 11

Could the plain theme be tweaked so the preview box is more different from the text box? It used to be blue-ish, I think. I am constantly trying to type into the preview box, which is very close in grey tone to the text one.
posted by Rumple at 7:12 PM on March 11

"This started off a little badly, but now I think we need to all stand in a circle, turn to our left, and then give the person in front of us a nice ... "

I was absolutely sure this was not going to end with "pat on the back".
posted by mr_crash_davis at 7:49 PM on March 11

I'm getting old and it's hard to keep up with all the slang - is "pat on the back" the new word for reach-around?
posted by dg at 8:19 PM on March 11 [1 favorite]

AskMetaFilter, where people are nice and are required to be helpful in answering questions

Unlike nasty ol' MetaTalk, aka AskMe's bile shunt/sump hole*.

*Which is as it should be if it has to be, I suppose; I just think it's odd that folks seem to be so down on the Grey and keen on the Green when the positive aspects of the latter are directly attributable to the former. It's sort of like saying Asa is a better farmer than Mathias because Mathias' farm is messy and smells while ignoring the fact that the creek which runs through Asa's feedlot drains onto his neighbor's land.

And that's your awkward agricultural-themed rhetorical parallel for today! I hope you enjoyed it!
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 11:04 PM on March 11 [1 favorite]

It's like saying that AskMe is Abel and MeTa is Cain and AskMe is growin' all these fruits and MeTa has nothing but bitterness and then wham, wisecracks kill the usefulness. That's what's gonna happen if y'all keep askin' MeTa if MeTa's seen how awesome AskMe is lately.
posted by klangklangston at 11:17 PM on March 11 [1 favorite]

Combined with the definition of "reach around," which I had to Google (!) and the agricultural themes... all I could think of was Johnny B. The song was based on a true story. End of video is a jokey scene by one of his sidekicks and may be [NSFW].

Hug a cow today!

(and thanks for all the ponies as well)
posted by Marie Mon Dieu at 3:35 AM on March 12

and then wham, wisecracks kill the usefulness.

What, were they supposed to be the usefulness' keeper?
posted by ersatz at 5:46 AM on March 12 [1 favorite]

get yourself a faster computer or stop using firefox
posted by caddis at 7:13 AM on March 12

I think the pop up dialog should read:

Are you sure you want to hide Live Preview now?

You'll lose any comment you've started, and any mistakes you make as a result will haunt you to the end of your days. You will spend sleepless nights, tossing and turning, burdened at your failure to close that one tag; the one that ruined your markup and completely changed the meaning of your comment. They made fun of you, didn't they? You tried to defend yourself, but you knew that it was instantly destined to become a venomous in-joke, and you were the butt of it. And if that wasn't bad enough, it was almost immediately picked up by many different sites, and you became an overnight Internet meme. Your name became synonymous with a pointless and stupid failure, all because you neglected to check your work. Is that what you want? Are you sure you want to put yourself through that? Ok, well fine, you've been warned.

Though, admittedly, it's a little more wordy.
posted by quin at 8:03 AM on March 12

Also, live preview seems a bit redundant to me.. (Note to mathowie / jessamyn / cortex: I'm sorry if I seem like b3tch!)

Not hardly, majikstreet. Some of the rhetorical criticism upthread is useful—how to phrase and frame a request is worth considering, not so much because the mod team will murder you or anything but because, as folks have said, in Metatalk the initial tone tends to get pretty starkly amplified in the enusing thread. Saves you a lot of grief if your post reads unambiguously as a respectful proposal/brainstorm rather than a demand, basically.

I was going to offer a defense of Live Preview, but late to the thread as I am I see now that all of my defenses were covered already (key thing for me: easily testing links for well-formedness at a glance, but I tend to throw a lot of html into my comments) and, besides, Matt has gotten all Alexandrian on this particular gordian knot anyway.

An unrelated question: Can admins see what we type into Live Preview?

Like jessamyn said: nope. We'd have to go out of our way to store drafts, and I can't imagine why we'd want to. We already get to see the "gold" on a daily basis when we sift through the flag queue, and I think it's safe to say we get our fill and them some as is.

Does anyone else have live preview slowdown?

I feel like I remember encountering it somewhere at some point, but I can't remember the specifics and its certainly not something I've run into recently. The notion that it correlates to large threads rings a bell, too.

live preview is neither.

That's supposed to be sandwich between "I'll give you a topic" and "discuss amongst yourselves".
posted by cortex at 11:41 AM on March 12

I think we should market little rubber wristbands in blue, green, and gray that say "LivePreview" on them.
posted by Kwine at 1:29 PM on March 12 [1 favorite]

You know what I hate more than overused, unnecessary ellipses? Even more than when they are used in place of commas, colons, semicolons, periods, etc?

When the person can't even be bothered to type all three and stops at two. Oh, how it irks me.

Anyway, welcome aboard, majikstreet. I like your flickr photos.
posted by CitrusFreak12 at 3:22 PM on March 12

Live Preview Slowness March 11, 2008 12:47 PM Subscribe

Live Preview Slowness
March 11, 2008 12:47 PM Subscribe