Comments on: Request: A way to disable live preview.

Request: A way to disable live preview.

interrobang — Wed, 27 Jul 2005 22:50:54 -0800

I *hate* the live preview feature. There, I said it.

By: interrobang

interrobang — Wed, 27 Jul 2005 22:51:04 -0800

It is distracting to see the characters moving at the bottom of the screen in my peripheral vision while I'm typing. It's like having a flash ad playing while I'm trying to say something.

I don't understand at all why this is a good thing, except to make sure that a link is going to the right place, and not to somewhere unrelated that is already in my clipboard that I copied for some email I composed. I could already check this before, by hitting "preview".

And yes, I know that there is now a "preview" option, but the movement at the bottom of the screen while I'm typing is extremely obnoxious.

It's obviously a whiny longshot, but it would be nice to be able to disable this miserable "feature".

By: scarabic

scarabic — Wed, 27 Jul 2005 23:00:18 -0800

Yeah I have always been distracted by letters appearing as I type.

By: five fresh fish

five fresh fish — Wed, 27 Jul 2005 23:05:43 -0800

I'm ambivalent at best. I don't need no stinkin' preview to tell me what my text is going to look like. But it sure is kewl tech.

I will soon grow very, very tired of it.

I'm also annoyed that it seems to have caused a problem whereby pressing "Post Comment" sends MeFi off to la-la land for ever and a day. The thread never does end up reloading automatically.

It's also completely destroyed any minor tendancy I had to read my message again before hitting "Post." Consequently, more errors are getting past me.

I should hardly think the advantage of live preview outweighs the disadvantages.

and if anyone *really* wanted to do MeFi (and all wikis) a favour, it would be to write a reST-parsing version of this preview mode. And all the better if it automagically previews it *in the edit window itself*.

By: kenko

kenko — Wed, 27 Jul 2005 23:14:57 -0800

Esp. since the live preview doesn't actually necessarily reflect what you will see when you post! It allows all sorts of tags that are stripped out, and many people have discovered that it shows entities in ways suggesting that they'll display correctly when, in fact, they might not. The sole real advantage, as far as I can tell, is reducing server load because comments that go directly to post and do not pass an initial preview stage don't result in an extra server hit. This does not seem to have stopped the JRuns, however. I don't think there's any advantage in terms of seeing your text in white on a dark color instead of black on a light color, so the only benefit in terms of previewing it offers is in verifying tag correctness and well-formedness. I suppose that's nice, but it's a hell of a lot less useful than real preview is.

By: mathowie

mathowie — Wed, 27 Jul 2005 23:16:15 -0800

Resize your browser window so it is shorter, and you won't see it.

Problem solved.

By: greasy_skillet

greasy_skillet — Wed, 27 Jul 2005 23:24:14 -0800

And quit whining.

By: freebird

freebird — Wed, 27 Jul 2005 23:27:01 -0800

Try hitting "preview" before typing anything, then it's back to the Old School comment system yo.

OP - mathowie's solution is a user-centric forward looking leveraging of client-synergy to add value incrementally.

By: Jimbob

Jimbob — Wed, 27 Jul 2005 23:32:45 -0800

It allows all sorts of tags that are stripped out,

Werd. I demand resumed support for <span style="background-color: #f00; color: #0f0;"> and <embed src="kennyg.mid" />

By: hototogisu

hototogisu — Wed, 27 Jul 2005 23:33:16 -0800

no freebird, not that again!!!

By: loquacious

loquacious — Wed, 27 Jul 2005 23:35:47 -0800

I'm starting to dislike it as well. It's a gorgeous piece of code, really slick... but I'm not using it, except to eyeball short posts.

I've been mostly using the "hit preview first" method. I tend to write long posts, and it starts to slow my browser to a crawl after a couple of paragraphs.

I guess I could use that as a method to limit my posts, but if other more extreme methods haven't worked, neither is this.

By: Edible Energy

Edible Energy — Wed, 27 Jul 2005 23:43:43 -0800

Resize your browser???
I just don't scroll all the way down the page until Im ready to preview.
Then I scroll to check it out.
Oll Korrect?
Post.

By: blacklite

blacklite — Wed, 27 Jul 2005 23:48:19 -0800

It turns out, after the initial shine came off, that I don't use it at all. And it's in the way. And it's weird.
Can we have a preference option to turn it off or something?

By: grouse

grouse — Wed, 27 Jul 2005 23:51:39 -0800

Use GreaseMonkey to get rid of it. And please don't ask someone else to write the GreaseMonkey script for you here. There, that's my whine.

By: Quartermass

Quartermass — Wed, 27 Jul 2005 23:54:23 -0800

Sometimes I zone out while typing a comment, and I end up staring at the live preview instead of the original comment box, and it screws me up.

I do what Edible Energy does, I just scroll down far enough to see the box, but not far enough to see the live preview. I still like it, but sometimes it still trips me out.

Man.

By: Quartermass

Quartermass — Wed, 27 Jul 2005 23:55:45 -0800

and please don't ask someone else to write the GreaseMonkey script for you here.

Yeah. We hate that!!!

(WTF?)

By: figment

figment — Thu, 28 Jul 2005 00:36:08 -0800

Wasn't the point that it lessens the load on the server by reducing the requests from the preview button? Surely that's good.

By: tweak

tweak — Thu, 28 Jul 2005 00:51:58 -0800

Is it too late to hire Adaptive Path?

By: Ryvar

Ryvar — Thu, 28 Jul 2005 01:19:03 -0800

I would also like the ability to turn it off. It's distracting and due to the length of many of my posts not at all useful. I'm all for lessening server load, but not allowing people to disable it seems a touch odd.

By: handee

handee — Thu, 28 Jul 2005 01:53:47 -0800

Oh come on people - it's not that hard to just scroll down just as far as the text box, type your comment, and only look at the preview when you go to post. Is it?

By: abcde

abcde — Thu, 28 Jul 2005 02:06:13 -0800

As I said, a rich text approach would be better - I'd write it if Matt said he'd paste it in ;)

By: stupidsexyFlanders

stupidsexyFlanders — Thu, 28 Jul 2005 02:15:11 -0800

The time would have been better spent on jrun issues.

By: hototogisu

hototogisu — Thu, 28 Jul 2005 02:22:11 -0800

Hmmmm...i read that and saw "Jesus issues"
YMMV

By: grouse

grouse — Thu, 28 Jul 2005 02:45:38 -0800

JRun is a new version of Jesus. That's what the J stands for—Jesus. The difference is that JRun can be resurrected several times a day, instead of only on Easter Sunday.

By: hototogisu

hototogisu — Thu, 28 Jul 2005 02:48:04 -0800

I have a hard time accepting #1 as the beleaguered servant of a fickle tech-god. Then again, it takes all kinds...

By: cyphill

cyphill — Thu, 28 Jul 2005 03:08:24 -0800

See Jesus Run.
Run Jesus Run.

I don't much care for live preview either, but I just don't use it. My only gripe is that I tend to hit post now instead of preview. Often that is a mistake.

By: mathowie

mathowie — Thu, 28 Jul 2005 03:59:07 -0800

I just don't scroll all the way down the page until Im ready to preview. Then I scroll to check it out. Oll Korrect? Post.

This is precisely how I use it, and how early testers reported use to me. It doesn't bother me because I don't see it until the end, when I have to scroll down to hit post and the preview serves its purpose by being a nice preview of what I'm about to post.

I recommend following this approach if the live preview is distracting because it will be essentially hidden from view.

The time would have been better spent on jrun issues.

This is a big way to work on "jrun issues" such as memory management and server load. Removing tens of thousands of preview pageloads has resulted in noticeably better server uptime and load. Previously, I was having major stability issues every few hours, now it's maybe once a day. There are still small time-outs here and there, but the server isn't crashing in a blaze of glory every three hours like it was a couple months ago.

The live preview is a positive thing in this aspect.

If anyone is an expert in java virtual machine memory management/garbage collection by all means I'm open to suggestions for how to further improve the java server, but reducing pageloads was a big step towards eliviating some bottlenecks during the busiest times of the day. It's not just a bright shiny thing I added for kicks.

Esp. since the live preview doesn't actually necessarily reflect what you will see when you post! It allows all sorts of tags that are stripped out, and many people have discovered that it shows entities in ways suggesting that they'll display correctly when, in fact, they might not.

I've addressed this in other threads that yes, indeed, the preview isn't 100% exactly what will be posted because it isn't filtering disallowed HTML or international characters, but like I've said before, I believe this need for character entitites is overstated, as they really don't come up that often for legitimate reasons. Nothing has changed in the way comments are stored on the server side, so the problems of adding crazy characters to your post are identical to what they were before the live preview.

I'm positive the preview is exactly wysiwyg for 99%+ of user comments submitted here. Rarely, someone posts a chunk of code or a heart symbol or something similar that when posted has an extra line break or two or shows up as a ??? instead of their character, but for the vast majority of comments, the live preview reflects exactly what someone wanted to post.

In the near term, I'm not going to code in a preference to show or hide it, so I suggest those really put off by it try a site-specific stylesheet that keeps the preview div set to display:none, or someone is bound to create a greasemonkey script to do the same. I may do it down the line, but I'm working on some other new features and sections of the site.

By: Wolfdog

Wolfdog — Thu, 28 Jul 2005 05:33:25 -0800

Why not kill some of the 'live'-ness of it and have a refresh of the preview area triggered by a button? Call it 'instant preview' or something. It would have the same server-load benefits and get rid of the blinkenlights annoyance.

By: amberglow

amberglow — Thu, 28 Jul 2005 05:50:37 -0800

I like it. (altho more spelling and other errors of mine and others are getting posted)-- anything that takes a load off the server is a good thing.

By: languagehat

languagehat — Thu, 28 Jul 2005 06:13:23 -0800

I believe this need for character entitites is overstated, as they really don't come up that often for legitimate reasons.

What the hell is with this dismissive, verging on contemptuous, attitude? Did you hate Spanish class in school or something? You cheerfully accept all manner of chaos around here, embedded images, marquee tags, you name it; you put up with quonsar shitting on you every other day; but for some reason foreign characters really bother you. Frankly, I get the feeling you'd rather ban them than make them easier to post. Just what is so awful about þ or گ? And what exactly is a "legitimate reason"?

By: buzzman

buzzman — Thu, 28 Jul 2005 06:24:46 -0800

It's like a virtual conscience, moment by moment reminding me of what a bitter sarcrasstic person I am. But if it take a load off of the server, good deal.

By: OmieWise

OmieWise — Thu, 28 Jul 2005 06:35:50 -0800

buzzman writes "It's like a virtual conscience, moment by moment reminding me of what a bitter sarcrasstic person I am."

yeah, and that's in my nice comments.

By: andrew cooke

andrew cooke — Thu, 28 Jul 2005 06:51:15 -0800

tangentially related to all this, it might have been more acceptable to people if the new functionality had been presented in a way that appeared closer to the old way.

for example, it could have been implemented so that nothing appeared on the screen until you clicked "preview" at which point, instead of doing the form submit thing, it displayed the javascript generated text.

i understand completely why it wasn't implemented that way - it seems like extra work for no good reason, you don't see the cool letters as you type, there's an extra action required that does nothing useful, and you can't catch errors until you finish - but i was reading a book on design last night and one of the points raised was that people are way more conservative than you expect. one way to make changes more acceptable is therefore to make new things look like the old ones.

By: voltairemodern

voltairemodern — Thu, 28 Jul 2005 06:57:04 -0800

The feature showed up just after I joined, and it's been pretty nice for me--though, admittedly, I don't tend to use Arabic or Cyrillic characters all that often.

As for that problem, languagehat, what do you think would be the easiest way to allow those characters WITHOUT also allowing the freaky sockpuppets we saw so much of a week or two ago? I see Matt's "dismissive" attitude as frustration at being unable to both allow international characters and prevent clone sockpuppet accounts. Kind of a catch-22. If you have to choose one, though, preventing the clone accounts seems more important for this community.

By: Civil_Disobedient

Civil_Disobedient — Thu, 28 Jul 2005 06:57:48 -0800

I like it. The characters appearing as I type doesn't bother me, and I usually haven't scrolled down far enough to see them anyway (except when there's only one or two short comments in a thread). I just had to adapt my "previewing" style to check above the POST button, instead of click-preview-click-again. Wasn't very difficult.

but the server isn't crashing in a blaze of glory every three hours like it was a couple months ago

If for no other reason than this.

By: Wolfdog

Wolfdog — Thu, 28 Jul 2005 07:04:59 -0800

Ah. Emerac is the word that's been on the tip of my tongue ever since this debuted.

By: Roger Dodger

Roger Dodger — Thu, 28 Jul 2005 07:06:05 -0800

The pain associated with change is much less than the pain associated with loss. If it's cutting down on server load and Metafilter crashes, it must be good. As an infrequent poster, I fall into the 99% category Matt mentioned. I have no need to check that my special characters and html tricks show up correctly, because I'm only adding my two cents. I think it's great and don't see any changes necessary to make it work better for me.

By: jessamyn

jessamyn — Thu, 28 Jul 2005 07:06:25 -0800

if you click the preview button before you type anything, the feature goes away and you get the old box back again. You can think of that as the "disable live preview" button.

By: monju_bosatsu

monju_bosatsu — Thu, 28 Jul 2005 07:08:05 -0800

voltairemodern: "... what do you think would be theeasiest way to allow those characters WITHOUT also allowing the freakysockpuppets we saw so much of a week or two ago?"

There's no reason that the code that parses comments must be the same as the code that parses the input of user names. Indeed, I suspect that it is not the same code even as things stand now.

By: andrew cooke

andrew cooke — Thu, 28 Jul 2005 07:10:26 -0800

voltairemodern - the two issues are unconnected. checking someone's ID when they sign up is doesn't impose any restrictions on what characters people can post in a thread.

you can see this for yourself. international characters in posts are not "banned", they're simply broken (difficult to use) - look at languagehat's post and you'll see that he has included some. in contrast, international characters in usernames are blocked completely (i assume).

By: voltairemodern

voltairemodern — Thu, 28 Jul 2005 07:15:42 -0800

Sorry, people had been talking about the two problems in the same thread, so I assumed they were related. Of course, the fact that languagehat actually used some ICs in his post should have clued me in, but it's early where I am.

By: eddydamascene

eddydamascene — Thu, 28 Jul 2005 07:32:01 -0800

If server load is such a problem, why don't the admins just delete all the unused accounts? That should free up a tremendous amount of bandwidth.

By: Wolfdog

Wolfdog — Thu, 28 Jul 2005 07:34:13 -0800

If server load is such a problem, why don't the admins just delete all the unused accounts? That should free up a tremendous amount of bandwidth.
And use a smaller font size - fewer pixels to send.

By: delmoi

delmoi — Thu, 28 Jul 2005 07:35:14 -0800

you put up with quonsar shitting on you every other day; but for some reason foreign characters really bother you. Frankly, I get the feeling you'd rather ban them than make them easier to post. Just what is so awful about þ or ?? And what exactly is a "legitimate reason"?

Well, it dosn't take any extra work to allow for <blink> tags, but clearly the problem is with Cold Fusion and the JDBC driver's its using.

By: Pollomacho

Pollomacho — Thu, 28 Jul 2005 07:41:44 -0800

I lovin' it.

By: Edible Energy

Edible Energy — Thu, 28 Jul 2005 07:48:32 -0800

For Mozilla users: Install Aardvark.
It's an extension which allows you to delete any element on the page in just a few clicks. (among other things)
Right click, "start aardvark", then it'll form a red box around any element you point at. Point it at the live preview box, hit "W" (for wider) as many times as you need to encompass the box(twice or three times), then hit "R" to remove it from view. Then just right click "start aardvark" again to turn it off.

By: Rothko

Rothko — Thu, 28 Jul 2005 07:48:33 -0800

And use a smaller font size - fewer pixels to send.

Be sure to use <blink> for an additional 50% pixel savings...

By: Edible Energy

Edible Energy — Thu, 28 Jul 2005 07:50:34 -0800

^^^ Or just press Q to exit aardvark.

By: ODiV

ODiV — Thu, 28 Jul 2005 07:50:59 -0800

languagehat: It's not like they're any harder to post than they were are they? Just make sure to 'hard preview' your comment if you're posting any non-standard characters as you always have.

And for the record, I like the live preview. I can double check any links I've got in a post and the server load is reduced. I agree that it'd be neat to have it drop down with a button and that might placate those who are annoyed at the movement. I can certainly live with it as is though.

It is distracting to see the characters moving at the bottom of the screen in my peripheral vision while I'm typing.

It doesn't seem to bother me because it's my typing that's causing the movement (like in the text box). I guess if you try watching the preview instead that wouldn't really help, would it? Just throwing that out there.

By: yhbc

yhbc — Thu, 28 Jul 2005 07:51:59 -0800

nd cn't w jst d wtht ths cmbrsm vwlls, nywy? lmntng thm shld prk th srvr rght p, prnt!

By: Space Coyote

Space Coyote — Thu, 28 Jul 2005 08:05:04 -0800

I kind of like the slight delay between hitting a key and having the letter appear in the preview window.. reminds me of surfing BBSs on my old 2400baud modem.

By: freebird

freebird — Thu, 28 Jul 2005 08:11:02 -0800

For really real - you don't need an extension, just hit "Preview" and the live version goes away: it's like it was one month ago! Cheap time travel!

Seriously though, is that a bad solution for some reason? I hadn't thought of the server load issue, but it's hard for me to imagine a few of us Dissenters hitting preview is going to summon the JRun demons...is it?

By: Wolfdog

Wolfdog — Thu, 28 Jul 2005 08:17:14 -0800

..summon the JRun demons...
*shhhh* they can hear you

By: mendel

mendel — Thu, 28 Jul 2005 08:25:30 -0800

Don't mind languagehat. He's just got a þorn in his side.

By: rocketman

rocketman — Thu, 28 Jul 2005 08:29:20 -0800

I *hate* the live preview feature. There, I said it.

Then go back to MetaChat.

By: Optimus Chyme

Optimus Chyme — Thu, 28 Jul 2005 08:30:50 -0800

Live preview is great. If you're using all sort of funky tags and alternate characters in every single post, then, um, stop doing that.

By: kokogiak

kokogiak — Thu, 28 Jul 2005 08:33:26 -0800

For those who really hate it, wish to opt out (and are Firefox/Greasemonkey users), here is a UserScript to disable the Live Preview: DeadPreview.user.js - it just makes the page work in the "old" fashion.

Seems to work just fine (cached pages may still show the Live Preview, so you may have to clear your cache). Let me know if you see any bugs.

By: kokogiak

kokogiak — Thu, 28 Jul 2005 08:39:57 -0800

Ah shit - It isn't working at all, please disregard the userscript link above. I'll try to get something working later, but don't have the time to debug at the moment, sorry.

By: scarabic

scarabic — Thu, 28 Jul 2005 08:40:41 -0800

Removing tens of thousands of preview pageloads has resulted in noticeably better server uptime and load.

Sweet. Glad it's making a difference.

I'm not going to code in a preference to show or hide it

I think everybvody should pause and realize that if you did so, that would be one more database hit per user per page, one more condition to check when serving a thread, and that's not good for capacity/uptime. Offload that to people's local machines and a greasemonkey script, where a vast surplus of cpu cycles is sitting around wasted. Heh - I guess "wasted" is a matter of opinion :)

By: raedyn

raedyn — Thu, 28 Jul 2005 08:44:43 -0800

I won't use the script myself, but I appreciate your efforts kokogiak. It's very thoughtful of you to help out.

By: kirkaracha

kirkaracha — Thu, 28 Jul 2005 08:56:35 -0800

My only gripe is that I tend to hit post now instead of preview.

That might be fixed by switching the position of the buttons so Preview is on the left and Post Comment is on the right. People in culture that read left-to-right will often associate the button on the right with continuing or completing an action. (For example, Submit buttons are usually on the right and Cancel buttons are usually on the left.)

By: freebird

freebird — Thu, 28 Jul 2005 08:57:05 -0800

Removing tens of thousands of preview pageloads has resulted in noticeably better server uptime and load.

Ah. Missed that - using the "Preview" button to make LivePreview go away is, after all, a Bad Solution. Okeydoke.

By: soyjoy

soyjoy — Thu, 28 Jul 2005 08:59:30 -0800

This is the requisite spot in the thread where someone weighs in with disbelief that someone could be such a whiner as to post a MeTa thread complaining about this.

And yes, this is that comment.

Live Preview is a great feature. If you're distracted, duh, scroll up so you don't see it. If you want to use old Preview, duh, use it. I really can't fathom what the problem is.

By: five fresh fish

five fresh fish — Thu, 28 Jul 2005 09:01:59 -0800

What wolfdog said.

By: mathowie

mathowie — Thu, 28 Jul 2005 09:08:13 -0800

What the hell is with this dismissive, verging on contemptuous, attitude? Did you hate Spanish class in school or something?

No, it's more a matter that nothing has changed since I moved to CFMX three years ago in regards to broken high-character support, but suddenly it's a problem that renders the preview meaningless because a few people are seeing characters in preview that they can't post.

In the first thread about the entitiy support, I thought the bottom line after all the discussion was that rarely people want to make a character when describing a tattoo, and it'd be a nice thing to have, but not vital.

But it's mentioned here like it's a pressing problem.

By: mischief

mischief — Thu, 28 Jul 2005 09:09:35 -0800

Too bad quonsar didn't get an opportunity to comment earlier in this thread. tsk tsk

By: kokogiak

kokogiak — Thu, 28 Jul 2005 10:40:11 -0800

Okay, I've fixed the Greasemonkey Script: DeadPreview.user.js

Essentially, when you click inside the comment box, the Live Preview vanishes, and you just get the standard "preview" button. - Hell, I figure if my code offends, why not be the one to offer a way out.

Again, let me know if you notice anything wrong with the script.

By: kindall

kindall — Thu, 28 Jul 2005 10:54:39 -0800

Install Aardvark

Another good one is Remove it Permanently. Werks gud for ads too.

By: DevilsAdvocate

DevilsAdvocate — Thu, 28 Jul 2005 11:11:47 -0800

mendel wins.

By: languagehat

languagehat — Thu, 28 Jul 2005 13:45:36 -0800

Don't mind languagehat. He's just got a þorn in his side.

OK, it was worth getting all cranky just to get that response. Best Germanic-Character Pun Evar.

By: drezdn

drezdn — Thu, 28 Jul 2005 15:18:54 -0800

I like it, it's especially useful for cult threads. Not that there are any anymore.

By: Tryptophan-5ht

Tryptophan-5ht — Thu, 28 Jul 2005 20:09:08 -0800

slap this in a greasemonkey script:

getEl("comment").onkeyup = "";
getEl("comment").onmousemove = "";

should work.

By: Tryptophan-5ht

Tryptophan-5ht — Thu, 28 Jul 2005 20:17:27 -0800

wait, replace getEl with "getElementById". "window.getEl" might work too.

By: nixerman

nixerman — Fri, 29 Jul 2005 07:01:35 -0800

It is pretty distracting and annoying. The thing is, live preview doesn't have to be live. It shouldn't update in real-time. The only reason it's live is due to the awful tendency of javascript'ers making everything as 'dynamic' and 'active' as possible. Why can't there simply be a button, say, called 'Preview' that grabs the text area text and renders it inline? Pressing such a button could even hide the original text area. There's no reason I can fathom to see the same information presented twice.

Also, the width is still an issue. Because the live preview is so narrow I, and I suspect a good deal others, end up hitting preview anyways.

It is a clever use of javascript and anything that takes load off is good, but it could be much nicer and less in-your-face.

By: mokey

mokey — Fri, 29 Jul 2005 10:51:18 -0800

Matt, I think I better let you know the word you're after is "alleviate", not "eleviate"!!

By: anapestic

anapestic — Fri, 29 Jul 2005 12:48:14 -0800

I took "eleviate" to be a portmanteau of "alleviate" and "eliminate." Mr. Dodgson would have been proud.

By: davidmsc

davidmsc — Fri, 29 Jul 2005 13:09:11 -0800

I like it -- but if Matt is able to give folks a toggle on/off switch, that would be cool.

By: five fresh fish

five fresh fish — Fri, 29 Jul 2005 17:45:28 -0800

I took it as elevate and alleviate... eleviate = a heightened state of alleviation...