Add a confirmation pop-up that provides a user the option to stay on the current page if leaving would delete their unposted comment.

[Pseudorandom-Pseudonym]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.

It's really demoralising when you've spent the effort to write, format, add images to a comment, etc. only for it to be cast into the void becasue of a misclick.

I'm aware of this issue, yet it still gets me. The project details page and sometimes the task panel can be long enough that the comment you intended to post is no longer visible. Maybe you thought it would be a great idea to add a screenshot of the feature you're talking about, so you press the contribute page in the same tab to open a task, GONE!

Describe the solution you'd like

Please add a pop-up with the option to stay on the current page if unposted characters/data are present in the comments box. This will be useful regardless of how users write their comments.

As a plaster/band aid at least add the notification text "consider using an external application like a word processor to save your progress when writing comments" to the comments box (where "Leave a comment..." resides).

Describe alternatives you've considered

I have used word processors and IDEs in the past to write comments in a safer environment where I can save, or perhaps recover them before posting. This does work, and you can get an IDE to show a preview of the markdown, however I think that word processors generally will not do this, and if you wish to upload images then the comments interface on the tasking manager is the easiest way to do so (I believe). Plus I don't think that using external applications first is the general approach that people take, and I still get bit by this bug even though I know about it.

Some functions like @ work better on the TM, because you receive user suggestions.

The TM does not properly/full support markdown formatting so even when using an IDE the output may be misleading, since the TM may not format the text in the same way.

Using additional software is just an extra step to posting a comment. Sometimes users will just give up and not bother after encountering this bug, ask me how I know.

Using external apps to write comments has the additional advantage of making it easier to fix a mistake after posting, since the TM only allows deletion of comments and not deletion, becasue the formatting will be retained (unlike copy pasting).