Comments on 9855 | MetaTalk

A pony: Can the Live Preview box be displayed in the same fashion as the actual posts on the page? More specifically, rather than being indented to the same margins as the comment entry box, can it be shown with the same margins as the actual posts on the page?
posted by Jairus to feature requests at 8:51 AM (14 comments total)

The live preview is a fantastic feature, regardless. Thanks, Matt.
posted by Jairus at 8:51 AM on July 22, 2005

Another request for that feature (especially, to be honest but selfish, because I'm using Metafilthy, so my input box itself is pretty much the width of the screen). And another "it's a fantastic feature, regardless".
posted by bugbread at 9:36 AM on July 22, 2005

Do you want it to refit as you resize your browser window as well?
posted by mischief at 9:43 AM on July 22, 2005

Well, if possible, yes, that would be the happiest conclusion, but since I don't know how difficult that is, I don't know whether it's a burdensome request.
posted by bugbread at 9:56 AM on July 22, 2005

Do you have any particular reason why such a feature would add utility?
posted by mischief at 10:07 AM on July 22, 2005

I haven't read every comment in the other thread about the Live Preview, but I think there was a request to do exactly oppostie of what you're asking.
posted by FlamingBore at 10:19 AM on July 22, 2005

mischief : "Do you have any particular reason why such a feature would add utility?"

Well, no more "utility" than the preview itself: the preview is intended to show you how things would appear. As such, making the preview more closely resemble the actual appearance would be a better preview, would it not?

FlamingBore : "I think there was a request to do exactly oppostie of what you're asking."

Er, how exactly would that work? Now, it looks like the comment input window. The request is to make it look like the completed comment would. A request to make it do the opposite would be a request to make it look like the comment input window...which it already does.
posted by bugbread at 10:27 AM on July 22, 2005

(Oh, and my own personal extra reason for the request: I'm verbose, and the skinny preview window results in having to scroll a lot to check my post, while a lot of screen space to the right is wasted)
posted by bugbread at 10:27 AM on July 22, 2005

Jairus, the preview is in a different place and it's a different color so that it's obvious that it's not posted yet, and is merely a preview. Since I started this site I've gotten a steady stream of emails from users irate that I removed their comment when it came down to them hitting the old style preview and never hitting post.

I concluded from years of feedback that since the preview looked almost exactly like a real post, many users were often convinced that they made the comment when they in fact hadn't. This live preview looks different to eliminate that confusion -- you know it's not yet posted because it's obviously different.

If you have a browser with ten tabs open and you're copying and pasting links from all over, it'd be easy to forget you didn't finalize your post to the site and left it in preview, wondering why it wasn't live the next time you visit.
posted by mathowie at 10:31 AM on July 22, 2005

bugbread, I'm sure metafilthy could be updated to also allow resizing of the preview spot. If someone wrote code to resize the textarea, it's trivial to also resize a div on the page. Have you contacted the author of it (I forget who wrote it)?
posted by mathowie at 10:34 AM on July 22, 2005

"making the preview more closely resemble the actual appearance would be a better preview, would it not?"

The problem is that you don't know how others have their browsers configured, so predicting the 'actual appearance' is virtually impossible.
posted by mischief at 10:36 AM on July 22, 2005

The problem is that you don't know how others have their browsers configured, so predicting the 'actual appearance' is virtually impossible.

Sure it's impossible to guess how the browser is going to render something, but you can be sure that things with identical styles are rendered identically in a single window.

That's what is being asked for - make the width of the preview equal the width of the regular discussion thread. I'd definitely leave the background a different color, to make sure we don't run into what mathowie mentions, where people confuse the preview with an actual comment. Personally, I think the mere fact that the preview is below the input box is enough - but the different background color is a nice touch.
posted by odinsdream at 10:43 AM on July 22, 2005

mathowie : "This live preview looks different to eliminate that confusion -- you know it's not yet posted because it's obviously different. "

Ah, ok, good to know the reasoning behind it.

mischief : "The problem is that you don't know how others have their browsers configured, so predicting the 'actual appearance' is virtually impossible."

I'm not sure I follow. Let's say, for example, that the div which contains my comment is width=90%. If you set the div for the preview to width=90%, would that not make the two have the same "actual appearance", regardless of my lack of knowledge of the browser configuration?

odinsdream : "I'd definitely leave the background a different color, to make sure we don't run into what mathowie mentions, where people confuse the preview with an actual comment. Personally, I think the mere fact that the preview is below the input box is enough - but the different background color is a nice touch."

Very agreed. Different color scheme & different position is enough, I think, to quell most of the "hey, you deleted my post!!" mistakes. I think the width could be made equal to the actual comment width without a great increase in preview-post-mistakes.
posted by bugbread at 10:52 AM on July 22, 2005

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