Dealing with edit conflicts
When you press Edit, Exponential first looks for drafts of the item that were never published. If it finds any, the page Possible edit conflict opens before the edit form. This page explains what it means and what to choose.
Why it appears
Every edit makes a draft. A draft stays until it is published or discarded, so the page appears when:
- you left a draft yourself, by pressing Store draft and exit, by closing the browser, or by leaving the form with the Back button;
- someone else is editing the item right now, or left a draft of it;
- both: drafts of yours and of others exist.
Two drafts in the same language are never merged. The one published last becomes the current version, so two people working on the same language of an item overwrite each other's work. The page is there to stop that from happening by accident.
Possible edit conflict: the message says whose drafts exist, the list shows each draft, and the buttons continue a draft of your own, start a new draft or cancel.
What the page shows
- The message at the top says whose drafts exist and when your latest one was last changed.
- Current drafts lists each draft with its version number, translation, creator, and the dates it was created and modified. Click the version number or the language to see what the draft contains.
- The buttons: Edit selected, New draft and Cancel.
What to choose
| The situation | What to do |
|---|---|
| A draft of yours holds work you want to keep | Select it and press Edit selected. You continue where you left off. |
| Your drafts are old or unwanted | Press New draft. A fresh draft is copied from the published version. Remove the old drafts afterwards (see below). |
| A colleague's draft is listed | Press Cancel and agree with them who goes first. You cannot edit someone else's draft; a new draft of yours would overwrite their work when it is published later, or the other way round. |
| You only wanted to look | Press Cancel. Nothing changes. |
Tidy up your drafts
Drafts you no longer need make the page appear again and again. Open My drafts on the dashboard, tick the drafts and press Remove selected. Removing the draft of a new item that was never published also removes that new item.
My drafts lists the drafts you started and did not publish. Open one to continue it, or tick and remove the ones you no longer need.
The surest way to leave no drafts behind is to leave the edit form with its own buttons: Send for publishing, Store draft and exit when you mean to come back, or Discard draft.
What can go wrong
- Edit selected does nothing useful. None of the drafts are yours. You can view them, but not edit them. Make a new draft or wait.
- A colleague's changes are gone. You published a new draft while they were working on theirs, or the other way round. Compare the versions and bring back what was lost: see Versions and drafts.
- The page appears every time. Old drafts are piling up. Tidy My drafts.
Read more
Contributors
- Balazs Halasy
- Andrea Melo Maintainer
- Geir Arne Waaler Maintainer
- Graham Brookins Updated Maintainer
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