Your edits are held until you save them. A new observation is not added to the project until you say so, and an edit to an existing one is not stored until you select Save changes.
This is how projects behave unless an administrator turns Auto-save observations on.
Draw a tag, a line, an area or a shape on an image, and it appears in the observation list straight away, with its name in italics. That means it exists only in your browser.
Fill in the class and anything else you need, then click Add to project.
Only one draft observation at a time. Starting a second one discards the first, so add each to the project before drawing the next.
Until you add it, a draft observation has no link to share and does not appear for anyone else.
Change the class, severity, name, colour or any of your profile's fields and two buttons become available:
| Button | Does |
| Save changes | Stores what you changed |
| Discard | Puts everything back as it was |
Moving a shape counts as a change: dragging a point, adding or removing one, moving a tag or its label. Discard undoes those too.
Three things never wait for Save changes:
So hiding an observation and moving on keeps it hidden, even though an unsaved severity edit on the same observation would not have been kept. Showing, hiding and reordering are about the list rather than the observation's content.
Selecting something else asks you first, and you have to answer:
Your new observation has not been added to the project yet. Would you like to add it?
Your previous observation had unsaved changes. Would you like to save them?
Choose Add to project or Save changes to keep the work, or Discard to drop it. There is no way to dismiss the question, because dropping the work is one of the two answers.
Save before you leave the project. Closing the tab or reloading the page warns you through your browser, but the safe habit is to save first.
Esc works in steps, so one press does not throw away more than you meant:
An administrator can switch a project back to saving every change as you make it.
It applies to that project only, and to everyone working in it. Switching it on keeps any work you were holding at the time.
| What you see | What it means |
| An edit I made is gone | It was not saved. Selecting something else without answering Save changes discards held edits. |
| My new observation vanished | It was a draft observation and was not added. Drawing a second one discards the first. |
| The observation list shows a name in italics | That one is a draft observation. Click Add to project. |
| No Copy link on an observation | A draft observation has no link until it is added to the project. |
| Save changes and Discard are greyed | Nothing is waiting to be saved. |
| Hiding an observation stuck, but my edit did not | Showing and hiding always save. Content edits wait for Save changes. |
| The Auto-save observations switch is greyed | Changing project settings needs project-admin rights. |
| "The observation could not be saved" | The save failed and your changes were kept. Try Save changes again. |