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The solution for Firefox now is to install the SiteMacro Extension for (Ubuntu) Firefox, and to have the macro map to the edit button. Each time now that the site reloads, it automatically goes into edit mode. Thus, I can press [Control][Enter] to save the work-in-progress. And then, the Question or Answer reverts to re-edit the work-in-progress. After a full save, usually everything works fine. I can turn on or off this macro in the Firefox add-in preferences. Also, I detail how to solve the bigger formula mystery below.

I was noticing that before saving, that the below formula renders incorrectly (too small). Only after saving the draft, does it show as below:

Stack Mathematics Meta rendering after a full question save:

$$ \overrightarrow A(\overrightarrow r)= \begin{cases} \dfrac{\mu_0 R \sigma}{3} \left(\overrightarrow \omega \times \overrightarrow r\right), \quad\text{for points inside the sphere} \\ \dfrac{\mu_0 R^4 \sigma}{3r^3} \left(\overrightarrow \omega \times \overrightarrow r\right), \quad\text{for points outside the sphere} \end{cases} $$

Stack Mathematics rendering of a draft save:

enter image description here

I had asked the question about how to format this exact formula text, so it would show the proper large fonts (like in the source that I had referenced, that I needed to convert from a picture to MathJax text):

$$
\overrightarrow A(\overrightarrow r)= 
\begin{cases}
\dfrac{\mu_0 R \sigma}{3} \left(\overrightarrow \omega \times \overrightarrow r\right), \quad\text{for points inside the sphere} \\ 
\dfrac{\mu_0 R^4 \sigma}{3r^3} \left(\overrightarrow \omega \times \overrightarrow r\right), \quad\text{for points outside the sphere}
\end{cases}
$$

The picture of the reference that I was trying to quote (reproducing its large text using dfrac) is shown here:

Picture of referenced formula that has large text

There, only after saving the question, it shows as:

Picture of rendered large font only after saving it

There was a link to the sandbox documentation that I followed. But it does not seem very specific to the author and a little bit hard to reference, especially since it states:

Link to sandbox documentation

The sandbox documentation, from the above screenshot, seems to indicate that it is not accepting additional questions or answers.

Therefore I recommend possible resolutions as follows:

  1. Make it an option to save a draft.
  2. The site name could start with "draft-of-article-name".
  3. The draft not be visible to the general community.
  4. Only community members with reputation above 1000 would be able to view the drafts.
  5. Votes would not be allowed since the draft is not visible to the general community.
  6. Drafts would not influence the ability to write other drafts (no timeouts).
  7. Comments would be allowed by community members with reputation of greater than 1000.
  8. The goal of these comments would be to help improve the draft before it publishes.

Another possible route would be to improve the formatting - so that before the question is saved, that it renders correctly.

Otherwise, the question author needs to make several revised savings after the initial publication. The question in such a case is not presentable yet to the general community.

  • Is it possible to resolve mathematical rendering issues within the question?
  • Or what else it recommended (as an answer or comment from the community)?

I did see the following reference with a similar question, "Is there a save draft...".

There was a comment there that referenced there "This is not complete for answers and new questions...". But it is still not complete because the drafts do not necessarily show the full formatting that is shown only with a full save of the question.

Also there is a commenting referencing "Manual Draft Save - Save a draft on demand". The drafts are indeed saving so often. But the crux of this issue is not that the drafts are not saving. Even after the draft seems to save automatically, the formatting here is different than a full save of the question.

The issue is that the draft formatting is incomplete for some formulas still. Complete formatting seems to require a full save of the question.

This exposes the question to potential down-votes, simply on the basis that the question is hard to understand because it is not able to be viewed properly without additional possible modifications.

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    $\begingroup$ Maybe I'm miss-understanding your issue, but you should use the Sandbox by picking an answer and editing it, rather than creating a new one. The Sandbox states (emphasis mine): "The sandbox has been "wiki locked" to prevent the creation of new answers. There are more than enough existing answers for users to edit over, and this will greatly reduce the frequency at which we request that the answers be disassociated from specific users." $\endgroup$
    – user1729
    Jun 29 at 10:25
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    $\begingroup$ (That said, I do believe that having the option to save a draft is a good idea. The auto-generated preview doesn't always works, so this should be fixed or a workaround introduced!) $\endgroup$
    – user1729
    Jun 29 at 10:32
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    $\begingroup$ If you look two items below the "not accepting new answers", it says "3. Do look for an answer which indicates that it is free and then edit it to your heart's content." You might have to scroll past some very long answers to find them, but there a bunch of them in there. "This answer is free for anyone to use." is the phrase to search for. $\endgroup$
    – JonathanZ
    Jun 29 at 15:49
  • $\begingroup$ Thank you @user1729 and JonathanZ on strike for your answers and insight. I really appreciate the admission that the auto-draft-preview does not always format the same as a saved answer. For whomever voted -1, I had gotten confused by the "This answer is free for anyone to use" technique. I think that that is important enough that it should appear in the initial warning "It is not accepting new answers or interaction." I recommend that this warning has the addition that if the answer includes "This answer is free for anyone to use" that the author can use it, to clear up any confusion. $\endgroup$ Jul 3 at 8:58

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