every control writes itself

The Save button is gone, and so is the SaveTarget context that announced it.
Every screen here is a preview of the thing being edited, so a change is already
visible before it is written — a button then asks somebody to confirm what they
can see.

useAutosave debounces a burst into one request. It takes the unsaved state as a
string rather than a flag, so a failed save is not retried on the next render,
and it flushes on unmount so a section change loses nothing.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
This commit is contained in:
2026-09-01 07:34:34 +01:00
co-authored by Claude Opus 5
parent 6717402331
commit b5ca67e68e
8 changed files with 98 additions and 137 deletions
+22 -56
View File
@@ -1,7 +1,7 @@
import { Navigate } from 'react-router';
import { href, useNav } from './routes';
import { DEFAULT_SECTION } from './sections';
import { Check, Eye, Loader2, Monitor, Pencil, Smartphone, Tablet } from 'lucide-react';
import { Eye, Monitor, Pencil, Smartphone, Tablet } from 'lucide-react';
import { Button } from '@/components/ui/button';
import { sectionFor, sectionOpen, type SectionKey } from './sections';
import { AdministrationPanel } from './AdministrationPanel';
@@ -12,7 +12,6 @@ import { PagesPanel } from './sections/PagesPanel';
import { PageBuilderPanel } from './sections/PageBuilderPanel';
import { PublishButton } from './PublishButton';
import { SyncButton } from './SyncButton';
import { SaveTargetProvider, useSaveButton } from './SaveTarget';
import { DEVICES, ViewModeProvider, useViewMode } from './ViewMode';
import { DeviceToggle } from './DeviceToggle';
import { MessagesPanel } from './MessagesPanel';
@@ -59,35 +58,6 @@ const PANELS: Partial<Record<SectionKey, () => React.JSX.Element>> = {
media: MediaPanel,
};
/**
* The one Save, driven by whichever section is open.
*
* Renders nothing at all when the section offers none — Media, Administration and Messages have
* nothing to save, and a permanently dead button is worse than no button: it invites a press and
* teaches that pressing does nothing.
*/
const SaveButton = () => {
const target = useSaveButton();
if (!target) return null;
return (
<Button
size="sm"
variant="outline"
className="h-6 gap-1.5 px-2 text-xs"
onClick={() => void target.save()}
// Dead until there is something to write. The whole value of one Save is that its state answers
// "have I saved?" — a button that looks the same either way answers nothing.
disabled={!target.dirty || target.busy}
title={target.dirty ? 'Save your changes' : 'Nothing to save'}
>
{target.busy ? <Loader2 className="size-3 animate-spin" /> : <Check className="size-3" />}
{target.busy ? 'Saving…' : 'Save'}
</Button>
);
};
/** The width the preview is rendered at. See DEVICES for why these three and not others. */
const BarDeviceToggle = () => {
const { previewable } = useViewMode();
@@ -98,7 +68,6 @@ const BarDeviceToggle = () => {
return <DeviceToggle size="bar" />;
};
export const DetailPanel = () => {
/*
A page selected inside Pages opens the BUILDER, not the list with a row lit up. By SLUG, so the URL
@@ -155,42 +124,39 @@ export const DetailPanel = () => {
shared furniture drawn the same way by every panel in the app; these two buttons belong to this
plugin and to the site it administers.
*/}
<SaveTargetProvider>
<ViewModeProvider>
{/*
<ViewModeProvider>
{/*
Three groups: how you are looking at it, at what width, and what to do with it.
The middle one is centred against the BAR rather than against what is beside it — the two
outer groups change width as sections come and go, and a middle that drifted with them
would never be in the same place twice.
*/}
<div className="flex shrink-0 items-center gap-2 border-b border-border px-4 py-2">
{/* Empty, and deliberately still here: the middle group is centred against the BAR, so
<div className="flex shrink-0 items-center gap-2 border-b border-border px-4 py-2">
{/* Empty, and deliberately still here: the middle group is centred against the BAR, so
removing the left group would let Desktop/Tablet/Mobile drift left as the right group
changes width. It held Edit/View — see the note in ViewMode about why there is no
longer a mode to toggle. */}
<div className="flex flex-1 justify-start" />
<div className="flex flex-1 justify-start" />
<div className="flex justify-center">
<BarDeviceToggle />
</div>
<div className="flex flex-1 items-center justify-end gap-2">
{/* The order is the sequence: save what you wrote, make the media web-ready, then make
it public. A row that put them any other way round would read as the steps backwards.
Sync sits left of Build for the same reason Build sits left of Publish — it is what
has to have happened first, and a stale `derived/` is a picture missing from the page
you just built. */}
<SaveButton />
<SyncButton />
<PublishButton />
</div>
<div className="flex justify-center">
<BarDeviceToggle />
</div>
<div className="min-h-0 flex-1">{Panel ? <Panel /> : <PlannedSection section={current} />}</div>
</ViewModeProvider>
</SaveTargetProvider>
<div className="flex flex-1 items-center justify-end gap-2">
{/* The order is the sequence: make the media web-ready, then make it public. Sync sits
left of Build for the same reason Build sits left of Publish — it is what has to have
happened first, and a stale `derived/` is a picture missing from the page you just
built.
No Save. Every control writes itself — see useAutosave. */}
<SyncButton />
<PublishButton />
</div>
</div>
<div className="min-h-0 flex-1">{Panel ? <Panel /> : <PlannedSection section={current} />}</div>
</ViewModeProvider>
</div>
);
};
-71
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@@ -1,71 +0,0 @@
import { createContext, useCallback, useContext, useEffect, useRef, useState, type ReactNode } from 'react';
/**
* One Save, in the panel's own bar, driven by whichever section is open.
*
* ── Why a context and not a prop ──
*
* The button lives in DetailPanel and the work lives in the section — and DetailPanel deliberately
* knows nothing about the sections beyond a map of keys to components. Threading a save handler down
* would mean every panel taking a prop it did not ask for, and DetailPanel holding a union of what
* each of them can do.
*
* So the section announces itself instead. It says whether it has unsaved changes, whether it is busy,
* and how to save; the bar renders that. Neither has to know what the other is.
*
* ── One Save replaces the per-card ones ──
*
* The panels used to save a card at a time, because the API treats an absent key as "leave it alone" —
* so a Save carrying everything meant a half-written manifesto shipping with a photograph somebody
* meant to change. With one Save that is no longer an accident, it is the model: one Save saves the
* page you are looking at, which is what a person expects from a button that says Save.
*
* What it costs is the thing worth stating: there is no longer a way to commit one part of a page and
* leave the rest. Nothing in this admin needed that, and if something ever does it wants its own verb
* rather than four buttons called the same word.
*/
export type SaveTarget = {
/** Something is edited and not yet written. The button is dead without it. */
dirty: boolean;
/** A save is in flight. Keeps a second press from starting a second one. */
busy: boolean;
save: () => void | Promise<void>;
};
const SaveTargetContext = createContext<{
target: SaveTarget | null;
announce: (target: SaveTarget | null) => void;
}>({ target: null, announce: () => {} });
export const SaveTargetProvider = ({ children }: { children: ReactNode }) => {
const [target, setTarget] = useState<SaveTarget | null>(null);
// Stable, so the effect in `useSaveTarget` is not re-run by this provider re-rendering.
const announce = useCallback((next: SaveTarget | null) => setTarget(next), []);
return <SaveTargetContext.Provider value={{ target, announce }}>{children}</SaveTargetContext.Provider>;
};
/** Read by the bar. Null when the open section has nothing to save. */
export const useSaveButton = (): SaveTarget | null => useContext(SaveTargetContext).target;
/**
* Called by a section to offer its Save.
*
* `save` is held in a ref and the effect depends only on the two booleans, so a handler rebuilt on
* every render — which it is, being an ordinary function in a component — does not re-announce on
* every render. Announcing in a loop would be a state update per render, which React stops by
* throwing rather than by being slow.
*
* The cleanup clears it, so a section that unmounts leaves no button behind pointing at a component
* that is gone.
*/
export const useSaveTarget = (dirty: boolean, busy: boolean, save: () => void | Promise<void>): void => {
const { announce } = useContext(SaveTargetContext);
const saveRef = useRef(save);
saveRef.current = save;
useEffect(() => {
announce({ dirty, busy, save: () => saveRef.current() });
return () => announce(null);
}, [dirty, busy, announce]);
};
+2 -2
View File
@@ -8,7 +8,7 @@ import { useFlash } from '../useFlash';
import { RichText } from '../RichText';
import { MediaField } from '../MediaField';
import { OverlayEditor, type Overlay } from '../OverlayEditor';
import { useSaveTarget } from '../SaveTarget';
import { useAutosave } from '../useAutosave';
/**
* About Us — four bands, in the order the page shows them.
@@ -139,7 +139,7 @@ export const AboutPanel = () => {
}
};
useSaveTarget(dirty, busy !== null, save);
useAutosave(dirty ? 'dirty' : null, busy !== null, save);
if (!about) {
return (
+2 -2
View File
@@ -7,7 +7,7 @@ import { readableError } from '../errors';
import { useFlash } from '../useFlash';
import { RichText } from '../RichText';
import { MediaPicker } from '../MediaPicker';
import { useSaveTarget } from '../SaveTarget';
import { useAutosave } from '../useAutosave';
/**
* The Home page: a hero, an intro, and an ordered gallery.
@@ -129,7 +129,7 @@ export const HomePanel = () => {
const save = () => send('save', () => clientRef.current.patch<{ data: Home }>('/fofos-admin/home', edited));
useSaveTarget(dirty, busy !== null, save);
useAutosave(dirty ? 'dirty' : null, busy !== null, save);
+3 -2
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@@ -4,7 +4,7 @@ import { useSearchParams } from 'react-router';
import { useClient } from 'hooks/useClient';
import { readableError } from '../errors';
import { useFlash } from '../useFlash';
import { useSaveTarget } from '../SaveTarget';
import { useAutosave } from '../useAutosave';
import { usePreviewable, useViewMode } from '../ViewMode';
import { applySpacing, paintMeasure, type SpacingDraft } from '../canvas';
import { SitePreview, useDevPort } from '../SitePreview';
@@ -203,7 +203,8 @@ export const LayoutPanel = () => {
}
};
useSaveTarget(dirty, busy, save);
// The serialised draft, or null when it matches what the server has. See useAutosave.
useAutosave(dirty ? only(draft) : null, busy, save);
// This section has a preview, so the bar offers Edit/View and the three widths.
usePreviewable();
const { device } = useViewMode();
+3 -2
View File
@@ -5,7 +5,7 @@ import { Input } from '@/components/ui/input';
import { useClient } from 'hooks/useClient';
import { readableError } from '../errors';
import { useFlash } from '../useFlash';
import { useSaveTarget } from '../SaveTarget';
import { useAutosave } from '../useAutosave';
import { usePages, type Page } from '../usePages';
/**
@@ -143,7 +143,8 @@ export const PagesPanel = () => {
}
};
useSaveTarget(dirty, busy, save);
// The rows that differ, serialised — so one set of edits is attempted once. See useAutosave.
useAutosave(dirty ? JSON.stringify(changed()) : null, busy, save);
const act = async (run: () => Promise<unknown>) => {
setBusy(true);
+2 -2
View File
@@ -7,7 +7,7 @@ import { Input } from '@/components/ui/input';
import { readableError } from '../errors';
import { useFlash } from '../useFlash';
import { MediaPicker } from '../MediaPicker';
import { useSaveTarget } from '../SaveTarget';
import { useAutosave } from '../useAutosave';
import type { RecordsConfig } from './records';
/**
@@ -222,7 +222,7 @@ export const RecordsPanel = ({ config }: { config: RecordsConfig }) => {
config.fields.some((f) => asText(draft[f.key]) !== asText(open[f.key]))),
);
useSaveTarget(dirty, busy !== null, save);
useAutosave(dirty ? 'dirty' : null, busy !== null, save);
return (
<div className="flex size-full flex-col gap-4 overflow-auto p-4">
+64
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@@ -0,0 +1,64 @@
import { useEffect, useRef } from 'react';
/**
* A change writes itself.
*
* ── Why there is no Save button ──
*
* There was one, in the panel's bar, announced by whichever section was open — see the git history for
* `SaveTarget`. Every screen here is a preview of the thing being edited, so the change is already
* visible before it is written; a button then asks somebody to confirm what they can see. What it
* really did was make "did that take?" a question, and answer it only after a press.
*
* ── The debounce is the whole mechanism ──
*
* A select fires per choice and a text field per keystroke. Waiting for a pause turns a burst into one
* request without anybody deciding when the burst ended.
*
* ── `pending` is a STRING, not a flag ──
*
* It is the unsaved state, serialised — whatever the panel would send. That is what makes this safe to
* retry-free: an attempt is remembered by its value, so a save that FAILS does not immediately run
* again on the next render. With a boolean it would: `busy` goes false, `dirty` is still true, and the
* effect starts another timer — a failing request every second for as long as the panel is open.
*
* Null means there is nothing to write, which is different from an empty string.
*/
const DELAY = 600;
export const useAutosave = (pending: string | null, busy: boolean, save: () => void | Promise<void>): void => {
// Held in refs so an ordinary function rebuilt every render does not restart the timer.
const saveRef = useRef(save);
saveRef.current = save;
const pendingRef = useRef(pending);
pendingRef.current = pending;
/** The last value handed to `save`. Compared, so one value is attempted once. */
const tried = useRef<string | null>(null);
useEffect(() => {
if (pending === null || busy || tried.current === pending) return;
const timer = setTimeout(() => {
tried.current = pending;
void saveRef.current();
}, DELAY);
return () => clearTimeout(timer);
}, [pending, busy]);
/*
Leaving with something unwritten.
The panel unmounts when the section changes, and a debounce that has not fired yet would go with
it — so a choice made and then navigated away from within half a second would be lost, silently and
only sometimes. The request outlives the component; the state updates it makes are no-ops, which is
fine because there is nothing left to show them.
*/
useEffect(
() => () => {
if (pendingRef.current !== null && pendingRef.current !== tried.current) void saveRef.current();
},
[],
);
};