I’m curious if everyone uses the editor to write their reviews or if they are pasting from a different program…word…etc…
also sometimes all the tools in the editor don’t show up ? is that something I clicked on and turned off?
Having lost posts in the past due to timeouts etc. I prefer to write up things in a text editor just in case.
Which post editor are you using (there are two in account settings, simple and advanced)? There is also a review template.
I inquired this same question awhile ago. For my first big review (as well as my big pic heavy u-gnd surveying thread) I wrote the text in Word putting all caps placeholders for images with my image names. I then paste into Word and insert my images at the placeholders.
For any large post I do now I hit CTRL-A and CTRL-C before I hit "Save" to post. Nothing like typing a bunch of text, hitting "Save" to post it and you get that dreaded "too many users" error on the site and lose your post!
EDIT - That review template can be copied into Word and editted there.
-Garry
I did a few reviews and did them in the editor, got used to that. I just don't seem to be able to use the extended emoticon listing.
Heck, back in the eighties I used to make my assignments in Wordperfect 3.0, printed them on chain paper with a matrixprinter and used scissors to roughly get it to A4-size. Luxury nowadays!
I work with many tabs (at the moment I have 8 opened) and after edaing a thread I closed it. Sometimes I close the wrong if I changed quickly between tabs and lost longer texts, which I have written.
Since this I wrote my reviews in word. First I wrote it in german (my native language), translate it later into english (sometimes I forgot to translate all word or the german word is a little bit different and I forgot this. For example: In german sing. and plu. of lumen is the same. This is the reason why I forgot sometimes s on lumens . Copy and paste it and will fillin only links or pictures directly.
It’s all a bit hit & miss as each different editor has it’s quirks depending on the site you’re using.
I wrote my last review here in BLF first as the editor is more flexible than many others (and has the direct HTML capability)
After about 200 previews hit ‘Save’ hold my head in my hands and pray 
Not before copying the entire HTML code first though lol
I do them with the advanced editor here. The worst thing that ever happened was getting halfway done and in the process of trying to go back a page on another tab I went back on the review, erasing everthing I had done!
There is a bbcode wysiwyg editor that can translate any html page if you want to repost a review elsewhere.
How do you lose texts? If I try to leave a thread here where I have already written something in the answer field I get a message if I'm really sure I want to leave and that I will lose what I have written so far.. I have to click OK or ABORT then.
I just use Windows IE
I just use the advanced editor, not really that hard (and I've done things that were 30+ pages on word) and it is very functional.
I've already lost stuff using the built in editor. I use a separate program to write my reviews then copy and paste into the forum editor.
I use the advanced editor, and keep a copy of the text in an external editor. Ctrl-A Ctrl-C is a good idea before hitting submit or preview.
The worst thing is copying a long post to the clipboard, getting distracted, copying something else and closing the editor before you’ve realised…
After losing far too many responses i put time into i started using this, it has saved my arse a few times
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/lazarus-form-recovery/?src=search
http://getlazarus.com/
That’s cool, added. Thanks Bort!
before i found this addon i had put in a ticket for this feature to be added to firefox, i have found other uses for it as well, i could be working on a reply but not feel like finishing it now, or i forget what i submitted on some form
Wait, it remembers EVERYTHING I’ve entered everywhere and then secretly sends it to the CIA so I don’t forget? Spooky.
more or less, yes
I had never seen the message before and lost texts. Now I changed in my account "Simple post editor" to "Advanced post editor" and now the message comes :)
In general, I would discourage against writing reviews in Word and pasting them into the Advanced Post Editor here, because it creates very sloppy HTML full of complex markup that sometimes acts weird in the Advanced Post Editor. As some have suggested, on a long post I always click “Disable Rich Text Editor” and copy the HTML to the clipboard before I hit the Save button, just in case.
Also as a general rule of thumb, most will probably find the Simple Post Editor to be the best default option for their daily (in some cases “minutely” 
) posting here. It’s faster and less quirky than the Advanced one. The exception is when writing reviews. For a long review, it is usually much easier to put stylized headings, create complex tables, and do other complex layouts in the Advanced editor. I mainly keep the Advanced editor around for use in reviews.