An update on the forums.

I think that the "idle" issue is a big part of why I'm having as much trouble as I am sharing story updates. Every time I spend more than an hour writing, the site starts to auto-refresh or act like I'm not logged in.

I've gotten a variety of errors from "Permission Denied" when adding an image to "Server Errors" and the site appearing to "Auto-Refresh" and delete auto-saved data. The "Auto-Refresh" typically happens after I encounter several "Server Errors" and "Permission Denied" errors. Anything written after 1 hour tends to be the most at risk because that's about when the errors start.

After several encounters with the site acting up while I'm writing, the auto-save feature completely deletes EVERYTHING I write. I have to keep back ups of back ups of back ups while writing. It can be difficult to remember to create back ups once the creativity starts to flow.

I don't have a way to "fix" things wrong in the forum, but I have found things that help when writing long bits of text. These can be helpful workarounds until the forums become more stable for long term writing. 

1. Keep a copy of large blocks of text in a Microsoft Word Document or some kind of document app.
   •  Most of these applications have built-in user-friendly features for recovering lost text when things go wrong. Web Browsers do not have this feature. 
2. Before typing a large block of text, press the Windows + V key in a Microsoft Windows Computer (Apple Might have a similar feature, but I don't know what it is). This will open up the option to enable a clipboard on your computer.  
   • The advantage of this feature built into Windows computers is that it can be a way to save your most current copy of text.
   • Use Ctrl+A to select all the text in a post
   • Use Ctrl+C to copy the text
   • Use Ctrl+V to paste the text
   • Windows Key + V allows you to access your clipboard and copies of everything you copied.
   • This does not capture images and if you copy/paste text, you will still need to add images later
   • This feature needs to be enabled before you start to write.

I typically spend 2-3 hours writing a chapter, more if I have time. It feels like the site only gives you 1 hour before it resets or auto-refreshes. Auto-Save can't keep up. My last attempt at a chapter, I lost 1-2 hours of progress. Every time I find something that helps, I've been able to cut the time down, but it's not a solution to the auto-save feature.

I do find "Starting a Discussion" to be the easiest place to write a chapter. I typically copy what I write and post it in the replies of my story thread. I just like the open space to write a chapter and having more tools to edit text in an easier place to get to them.

For the chapters I'm writing, I've started using an option to "Insert Links" to make getting to chapters easier. The links help with getting around the bulk of text and images that can't have spoilers. This doesn't solve formatting issues with the site structure, but it has made it easier to get to places that might otherwise require extensive scrolling.

A Table of Contents at the start of a story thread makes access to chapters in chronological order easier. Especially when links to the chapters are inserted.

The forums open pages based on what has the most likes. This can make chapters appear out of order if the other options aren't selected. I would recommend ordering story threads by the oldest first because that should put the SimLit in the proper chapter order.

As of writing this, Spoliers are not working properly. There is a tendency for Spoliers within a post to overwrite the content within another Spoiler. It's like a game of Whack-A-Mole for the user. Fix one thing only for something you just fixed to get overwritten by something else. I've only been able to get one spoiler to work within a post, but it would be ideal to use more than one spoiler to organize content and make it easier to access. For my story thread, I'm looking forward to the day I can add more Spoilers so the text doesn't require as much scrolling.

As of posting this, the Spoilers still aren't working, and I could not even update my thread with a new spoiler.

I might see if I can insert links to sections of a thread within my story thread to see if there is a way to save time scrolling.

All and all, there are many threads I want to follow and a lot of people I want to catch up with, but writing a chapter is eating up so much of my time that I can't spend time in other areas of the forums. While I've made progress working around the problems, these are not solutions to the problems.

I'm hoping this information helps others, and I look forward to expanding what I do here when things get easier to manage.