HELP!

[Erica]

I entered a very large segment of a trip report with pictures and it has now disappeared. This was about a week's worth of work.

I don't suppose there is any way of getting it back.

Is there anyway to SAVE text and pics when inserting a long trip report before posting?

 

[PaddlingPitt]

In a similar previous situation, someone suggested going to the topic, and hit reply. The missing draft miraculously reappeared.

 

[PaddlingPitt]

Also, if you click the last icon in the top row, before preview, it gives you a choice of saving or deleting the draft.

 

[Glenn MacGrady]

Erica, try what Michael Pitt suggested. Otherwise, I have no way of retrieving a lost message.

There is a maximum length of 15,000 characters per message (post) and 30 images per message. So, if your report exceeds those limits, you have to break up your report into more than one message. However, if you reach those message limits, you should just get a warning not a deletion.

As to writing, there is a save Draft icon on the reply box tool bar shaped like an old floppy disk. Look in there. Maybe you saved it as a draft by finger fumble mistake.

Some folks write and save their text in Word, paste the Word text into the reply box, and then insert the images into the text at the appropriate places. However, sometimes the formatting needs tweaking when you paste Word into the reply box, such as too much space between paragraphs.

 

[PaddlingPitt]

Erica,

I always posted my long trip reports in smaller chunks for three primary reasons. (1) I was worried about losing material. (2) People seemed to prefer serial postings, as it gave them something to look forward to. (3) it was very rewarding to receive positive feedback along the way.

 

[clemency]

I'm sorry. You'll just have to go and do the trip again.

 

[Glenn MacGrady]

As to writing, there is a save Draft icon on the reply box tool bar shaped like an old floppy disk. Look in there. Maybe you saved it as a draft by finger fumble mistake.

I just checked my administrative controls and found that drafts are supposed to be saved automatically every 60 seconds and saved for 24 hours. So, maybe your text has been saved. I'm not sure how you retrieve it if it was the OP of a new thread and you've closed out of that thread. Perhaps go to the forum you selected and hit the new post button. Maybe enter the same topic title you used. Perhaps then the text box will have a saved draft. Not sure.

According to the Xenforo forum, "Any saved drafts will appear in the editor when returning to the page where the draft was saved." The editor is that Drafts icon in the tool bar.

Perhaps you can go back into your browser's History and find the CTN page you were writing on.

 

[yknpdlr]

For long complex postings, I will frequently write it first using MSWord and temporarily saving it, mainly to get the spellings, typos, and grammar correct. This has saved me more than once when I lost the link to the intended posting

 

[memaquay]

I write all my long ones with word, then just copy and paste into the forum.

 

[PaddlingPitt]

I write all my long ones with word, then just copy and paste into the forum.

If you include images in your word document, do they also automatically copy and paste into the forum?
My trip reports were originally in ”word,” and more recently in “pages.” The formatting didn’t always come through cleanly, particularly for tables. Also the spacing between paragraphs was two lines rather than one. I also then had to enter images into the posted text.

 

[memaquay]

I use a photo hosting site, imugr at the moment, although I have also resubscribed to photobucket, they are no longer trying to hold one hostage for 400 bucks a year. I just copy and paste the image address from the photo hosting site into the word document and the picture pops up as soon as I post it. This is probably the biggest advantage to using a photo hosting site.

There are some discrepancies with spacing, I usually do a preview first, and then try to adjust it in the pasted version on the site. It's seldom perfect, but the thought of typing a long report with pictures exclusively into a website such as this sounds like risky business to me.

 

[Gamma1214]

Erica / Glenn: There may be a "draft" issue. I had previously loaded the first installment of my recent trip while I proof read and reformatted it for my website (I write it on a word program, leave notes for which picture goes where and then cut and paste onto both sites) and I cannot find my draft either.

I didn't lose much as my routine has always been to get the whole report ready to post on my site then cut & paste in installments here (I post to both so that, when my site goes dark someday, the TR will [hopefully] remain available here) but the fact is that I cannot find the draft. Even starting a new post by the same name does not pull it up.

I'll try again tonight and let you know if I can find it.

Sidebar: The only issue I've found with webhosts like photobucket are that the pictures become unavailable sometimes (maybe if the photographer stops subscribing?) and they often seem to have "Photobucket" printed diagonally across the picture (which I find annoying)

 

[Erica]

In a similar previous situation, someone suggested going to the topic, and hit reply. The missing draft miraculously reappeared.

The topic is missing also.

 

[Erica]

OK. Somebody here said to go back to the forum, type in the title of the topic again and see what happens, and that WORKED!!!

Thank you.

I am writing it in segments and was only trying to put up the first week. I type it out in Evernote which saves automatically sparing me that particular problem. It was when I was entering a photo that something went wrong and everything disappeared.

Ok, with any luck I'll get this first section done before the next millennium.

 

[Boreal Birch]

Glad that your trip report popped back, I was feeling your frustration, then your relief. Looking forward to reading your Trip Report.
B Birchy

 

[Glenn MacGrady]

I use a photo hosting site, imugr at the moment, although I have also resubscribed to photobucket, they are no longer trying to hold one hostage for 400 bucks a year. I just copy and paste the image address from the photo hosting site into the word document and the picture pops up as soon as I post it.

The only issue I've found with webhosts like photobucket are that the pictures become unavailable sometimes (maybe if the photographer stops subscribing?) and they often seem to have "Photobucket" printed diagonally across the picture (which I find annoying)

As I have explained and urged in THIS THREAD, it is highly preferable for this site's future generations of members to have all images uploaded from your computer/phone to this site's server rather than linking images from third party photo sites or other internet sites. You may think your internet photo site is immortal, or your interest in that site is immortal, or your wallet is immortal, or you are immortal—but none of those is immortal.

We have already been losing linked pictures in hundreds of older messages over the years, including trip reports, because the images have not been uploaded to this site's servers. Those images disappear from our messages, or go dark, or fade away because the internet image source dies or, unfortunately, the poster does. That image death trend will continue unless folks upload their images to this site's server—unless and until, of course, this site dies.

However, this site should outlive any of us and our internet photo accounts because this site should continue to have a replenished succession of administrators, members, and societal interest in canoeing.

 

[Glenn MacGrady]

OK. Somebody here said to go back to the forum, type in the title of the topic again and see what happens, and that WORKED!!!

That's great, Erica.

We all learned something from this, including me. The site automatically saves drafts every 60 seconds and saves them for 24 hours. You can retrieve drafts by returning to the forum and forum page from which they disappeared.

You also can intentionally save drafts using the Draft icon in the text box editing tool bar. I assume intentionally saved drafts can be saved for much longer periods than 24 hours, but someone would actually have to test that.

 

[memaquay]

If you are posting the same thing on a few forums, image hosting makes life a lot easier. I believe that photobucket learned its lesson, and the meager cost I pay now is well worth the many trip reports I had posted during the 2010 to 2020 period.

 

[Glenn MacGrady]

If you are posting the same thing on a few forums, image hosting makes life a lot easier. I believe that photobucket learned its lesson, and the meager cost I pay now is well worth the many trip reports I had posted during the 2010 to 2020 period.

Yes, it takes more time to upload images to each site's server than linking them from an image hosting site, but the point is that one's image hosting site account will close once one stops paying for it, such as by dying.

The issue, therefore, is whether trip reporters or other photo essayists want to maximize the probability that their work product will live on after them as a sort of historical legacy and memory of themselves—a legacy that can inform and entertain future generations of canoeists.

My view is that if I have taken the time to plan a trip, organize a trip, travel to and from a destination, take the trip, photo document the trip, take the time to write up the trip, and to insert my photos into my writing, it's a rather trivial incremental increase in overall time to upload photos rather than linking to a photo account, which account certainly will be transitory in the long term and unlikely to provide a sustained legacy. The more sites I upload to, the greater the chances that my words and photos will survive in the long term. Eggs, baskets.

Mem, I just looked at your first trip report on this site. The images didn't even last 10 years. Here:

Kapikotongwa River, Northern Ontario

Here's another report I posted on Myccr last year. This route is part of a vast network of routes on the east side of Lake Nipigon. We are continuing with the work this summer, opening up a key port to make access to lake Nipigon from Geraldton. Ran this trip late August 2012. The first...

www.canoetripping.net

 

[memaquay]

Interesting, it should be working, I'll look into it. Nothing in life is permanent Glenn, there is just as much chance that a forum could disappear, as in Wintertrekking and Solocanoe. The posts don't even exist, because the sites are gone. Life is a crap shoot, that's the Zen of it.

Edited to say I just checked out photobucket and that albumn is still intact. I guess the ability to edit a post disappears with time?