A mess up of gargantuan proportions

[Gnusboy]

I just messed up royally. I was replying to a message with lots of details. I hit a wrong key and poof, the message was gone. I tried the auto save, but there was nothing there. Same with the other stuff that was supposed to keep these things from happening.
I don't know how this kind of things happen. I don't touch type, so I am looking at the keyboard, but with fingers the size of a kielbasa, I can span two keys at the same time.
I can recreate the message that's lost, but I'm like to know how to stop it in the future.
Thanks.

[deadflowr]

I can recreate the message that's lost, but I'm like to know how to stop it in the future.

If really long try making the bulk of it in a text editor (like gedit) first, then just copy/paste it into a new post.

[coffeecat]

Thread moved to Forum Feedback & Help.

Been there, done that, got a whole drawerful of T-shirts.

If I'm composing a post with "lots of details", I always, but always, type up the first draft in a word processor or text editor. That can save a lot of aggravation. Vbulletin does have some sort of autosave function, but I've never got it to retrieve more than a totally inadequate amount. Others may have had more luck with it, in which case I would be glad to hear.

[oldfred]

I have clicked on the bottom where there is another workspace. Then everything disappears, but I see a tiny Firefox next to workspace I am not in.
Not sure what keys are to change workspace.

And I have managed to just accidentally close a tab or open another window of Firefox (not tab), sometimes losing everything. But often then the restore has some or most of the info I have typed.

[ajgreeny]

I have done that as well a few times and if it's a long post I've just written, it's very annoying!

The first thing to do is simply hit F5 to reload the page, when you may find that quite a lot, if not all, of your post has already been autosaved.

Look for the red coloured info text at the bottom left of the text entry box, "Restore autosaved text" or similar will show, but only once you have reloaded the page, so just click on that.

[Gnusboy]

Well folks you will not believe this
I very post I was in the middle of writing for here, just went poof. Again.
In this case, I was trying to save my forum post. But ... several other pages in the background came up and were blocking this page. They would not close or reduce enough to clear for me to get back to this page.
After lots of jiggering around I saw why I could not close or move the pages covering up my not yet ready to send or post to here. When I was able to move pages out of the way, or close them, what I saw were two of the reminders to " stay on page, save, or close page without saving"
These were also covered up until I saw them.
So, everything I wrote after thank you all for your help is gone. I'm going to do something else away from the keyboard for a while.
Thanks again for your help.

[ra7411]

Try Google voice typing - it might work. You have to build some technique, and of course you have to be in a place where you're not distracting others, but it does work pretty well.