(Update 2008-06-27: The right way to disable (version 2.3+) or delay (version 2.5+) the autosave function is described here: Adjust WordPress Autosave or Disable It Completely)

I've been having problems. WordPress is autosaving my drafts even though I don't want them to be saved yet. I also did something stupid that whacked my feeds pretty darned good. I'll explain both fixes:

Disable WordPress Autosave

The WordPress draft autosave adjustment I mentioned when I wrote how to Delay (Almost Disable) the WordPress Autosave Feature doesn't seem to work in the current 2.3 series. I just tested it every which way but loose. The best solution (right now) for disabling autosave is to comment out the parts of WordPress that invoke it. This is a hack you'll probably have to repeat when you upgrade your installation again.

In both /wp-admin/post-new.php and /wp-admin/page-new.php, insert "//" (without the quotes) at the beginning of this line (currently line 8):

wp_enqueue_script('autosave');

In /wp-admin/post.php, insert "//" (without the quotes) at the beginning of this line (currently line 63):

wp_enqueue_script('autosave');

In /wp-admin/page.php, insert "//" (without the quotes) at the beginning of this line (currently line 58):

wp_enqueue_script('autosave');

Remove Blank Lines and Open PHP Tags On Code Pages

My good friend, Hari, sent me a message a few hours ago that my feeds couldn't be subscribed to. I checked the validation tool at FeedBurner and sure enough, there were blank lines in front of the XML stuff which caused my feeds not to validate. It turns out the last time I edited my theme's functions.php file, I left a dangling open "<?php" tag at the end of the file. I removed it and attempted to resync with FeedBurner. Wrong answer. I didn't remove the blank lines that were still there after removing the extra tag. Once I did that and did the resync, everything was fine and dandy.

I'm lucky to have people that tell me when something's wrong. Some people aren't so lucky.

Dingle Dangle

The reference comes from an old military running cadence. You can find the whole thing at ArmyStudyGuide.com.