Technical query

[shewhomust]

My most recent post is a book review, which I wrote in two stages.

I started work on it on Wednesday evening, but didn't have time to finish it, so I saved it as a private (for my eyes only) post. Then last night I completed it, edited the date and saved it, this time as a public post.

My theory was that this would result in it being posted at the time when the completed piece was posted; my theory, however, was wrong. Struck by an awful thought, I checked durham_rambler's f-page, and found my post back in the sequence some time on Wednesday evening. Curses! I suppose LJ feels the need to indulge our silly insistence on being in different time zones, but only to the extent of letting us change the labels...

No, it can't be that, either, because I know you can post-date posts, to keep them at the top of your page (I don't know how, clearly, but I've seen it done).

Of course, none of this would matter if I were writing this journal purely for myself - but it seems that I do care, after all, that my 'friends' should at least have the chance of seeing what I've written.

So, tell me, LJ, what am I doing wrong? Can I use LJ to draft in advance like this, or do I have to compose my text elsewhere, and then cut-and-paste?

Comments

[karinmollberg.livejournal.com]

Am not from LJ, at least in that sense, but have made the same mistake and then noone saw my post I had put so much into!

What you can easily do is this:
start as you did with a post written and saved as private.
The moment you wish to post, meaning publish it; just copy the whole post incl. html etc. for pics or youtube parts of it, meaning copy it all (evtl. open another identical LJ-window; don´t know how or with what equipment you work).
Now create the new post which will have the date of the day and time of day you have given on your user info, for instance "european mid-time" and insert the whole of your thus saved text, pics and youtube parts or whatever.
Yes, I guess this is the kind of "shortcut" that eventually gets you there only two hours later than anyone else but it is a dead sure road, I promise!;)

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

Sneaky! Yes, you absolutely are 'from LJ', in the sense I meant, because that's a clever workaround - I hadn't thought of using cut-and-paste but within LJ.

[cellio]

Yeah, the date you edit is just a "display" setting; the actual timestamp of the first save is what controls where it shows up in friends lists. BTW, post-dated posts don't show up in friends lists at all, I think, so I'm guessing that that's just an override for inclusion, not a real "move" in time, and then there's some special code for your own journal. (Just speculating; I haven't read the code.)

I always compose my more time-consuming posts in a text editor and paste them into a fresh post form when ready.

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

I've been resisting the 'compose elsewhere' option, because I use the 'preview' facility to proofread - but I like karinmollberg's variation, of using LJ itself as a separate text-editor...

[artistatlarge.livejournal.com]

I had to actually go to the post page and hunt around, but up at the top (it may be different in rich text format, I'm a hard core hand-coder...) there's an edit button by the date line, and a little question mark help button next to that. Hitting it produced this page.

Of course, I'd be happy to see anything you care to write for eyes other than just your own!

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

Y'know, I hadn't thought of reading the 'help'. Not that it does help, on this occasion, but still, should've looked.

'Date out of order' ought to do it, but only moves posts within your own journal - they then don't show up at all on f-pages. I guess I'm just asking too much of the database...