It can be very frustrating if two (or more) people are editing the same post simultaneously. An example: first moderator A begins editing a post and while he is editing, then moderator B begins editing the same post because he has no way of knowing that someone else is already editing it. Finally they both save the post but only one version of the post is saved (the post from the moderator who saved it last). In these cases someone always loses his work. It's not so bad when you're doing a small edit but sometimes both moderators are using a lot of time and effort. Sometimes the other moderator doesn't even notice that his version of the post has not been saved. I'm one of the administrators on a forum where this is an issue because we need to edit a lot of posts when they are still new.
I didn't find any mods to prevent this issue in SMF 2.0.x so maybe someone could make one (for free) or at least give some advice where to start (maybe it's too much for my programming skills and knowledge of SMF, but I can try)? The mod should display a warning message and/or prevent editing a post when trying to edit a post that someone else is already editing at the moment (this should be a configurable option). There are some additional features that could be added to the same mod but let's start from the basic issue first.
Is there a way to find out if someone is editing the post (but has not saved the post yet and left an edit stamp) or would implementing this feature require some changes to SMF's way of doing things (maybe additional information to database)?
One way of doing this mod (using only SMF's current features) could be marking the thread as locked when someone starts editing a post in it and unlocking it after the post is saved. Then at least other moderators would get the SMF's standard warning "Warning: topic is currently/will be locked! Only admins and moderators can reply." However, this approach has some unwanted side effects and issues. For example the whole thread is locked which prevents users replying to it while someone is editing a post and how/when to unlock the thread if someone starts editing a post but never saves it (we would need to use some timeout or "watchdog"?).
This feature really should be in the current SMF already (locking a post when editing it).
When I edit a post, like that, I always make one edit, first, saying "/me is currently editing this post" in big, red letters and save it.
Then, I make the other edits that I need to make.
That way, other mods, etc. will know what I'm doing.
Does that help, at all?
/me is currently editing this post.
i dont think smf tracks who is doing edits so this may not be possible, also there are at least 2 ways to do the edit. if the user is editing the post inline, i dont think smf would even know that they are until they hit the save button.