[pmwiki-users] Oops! Upload Wipes User Edits!

[Patrick R. Michaud]

On Sun, Feb 27, 2005 at 06:38:07PM -1000, Sivakatirswami wrote:
> 
> I made a new page for him... sent him the URL, he logs in, spends 1/2  
> an hour drafting his user requirements, projected work flow and output  
> expectations. Then being a total newbie,.. he click hits "Upload"  
> instead of "Save."  His work is wiped out... I can't find any files on  
> the server with a time stamp for the moment he did this... looks like  
> his work is gone. 

Ouch.  Yes, alas, his text is gone, because the server never received
it from his browser -- by hitting "upload" he effectively navigated
to another page without having submitted the form to the server to
be saved.  (This would have happened even if uploads were enabled --
essentially he just chose to follow a link.)

However, I can totally see how this would happen.  First, the Gemini
skin changes the layout of the edit page such that the "Save" button is
at the top of the page.  Thus, when one has entered more than a screen
full of text, the true save button isn't visible (at least it's not
on my 1024x768 screen) and there's a nice row of button-looking things
below the form, one of which says "Upload".  So, since that sounds like
what an author wants to do, and since there's nothing else visible that
would indicate otherwise, pressing the upload link is clearly the
most reasonable action to take (alas, with disasterous results).

This points out a few UI items for skin designers:
 - A "Save" button generally belongs in close proximity to where the 
   author's focus is going to be when writing text -- typically this is
   at the bottom of the save area.
 - Sometimes it's better if links look like links and not like buttons.
 - "Upload" is one of those generic terms (like "user") that I prefer
   to avoid altogether -- perhaps "Attachments" is a better description
   of the action being performed.
 - Especially from the edit page, it'd be nice if the Attachments
   page opened in a new window.
   
> A good natured fellow he shrugged his shoulders,  
> sighed and said "OK, I'll do it again tomorrow." I'm using the Gemini  
> Skin if that makes any difference.

In this case it appears that the Gemini skin made all the difference,
as some skins (such as the PmWiki default) wouldn't have caused
this problem.  This isn't meant as a criticism of the skin authors
at all -- I didn't recognize the potential danger myself until 
the message just sent.

> So this link:
> 
> http://ourInHouseServer/pmwiki/pmwiki.php?n=Editorial.HpiInternational? 
> action=upload
> 
> which should just be "dead" and do nothing, actually does something:  
> delete all content on the page.

No, ?action=upload didn't delete the content on the page -- in this
case it just tricked your author into going to another page before
he had saved his contents.  Any of the buttons along the bottom of
the GeminiSkin page would've had the same effect.

Pm