Collaborative Soft Locks & Draft Protection

When multiple editors work in the same wiki—or when you accidentally open the same chapter in two browser tabs—Standalone Qwiki's advisory Soft Lock Engine prevents silent overwrite collisions.

How Advisory Leases Work

1. Lock Acquisition: When you click Edit Content (or open an HTML/Form editor), Qwiki acquires an advisory lease file (60-second TTL) bound to your username and unique browser tab ID.
2. Background Heartbeats: While your editor remains open, lightweight background heartbeats renew the lease automatically so your lock stays active for as long as you are editing.
3. Instant Tab Sync: Inside the same browser, BroadcastChannel notifies sibling tabs immediately when a lock is acquired or released.

When Another Editor (or Tab) Holds the Lock

If you open an editor on a document currently locked by someone else—or by another tab of your own session—Qwiki alerts you with who holds the lock and when it expires:

• Wait or coordinate with that editor until they click Save Changes or Cancel (which releases the lock immediately).
• Force Takeover (when necessary): Authorized editors can explicitly take over an active lock (for example, if a colleague left an editor tab open on another machine); lock takeovers are recorded in the Activity & Access Log.

Local Draft Preservation

To protect against accidental tab closes, expired sessions, or network drops, the editor preserves unsaved local drafts in your browser until your changes are successfully saved—letting you recover text cleanly rather than losing work.