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Feedal separates two distinct concepts that are easy to confuse: saving (persisting your in-progress edits) and publishing (creating a version that respondents can fill out). Understanding the difference prevents data loss and keeps your live form stable while you experiment.

The draft

Every form has exactly one draft — a mutable, private working copy of the form graph. The draft is never seen by respondents. It is what you edit in the Studio.
  • The draft exists from the moment a form is created.
  • Saving the draft does not affect the live form.
  • The draft always reflects your most recent edits.

Autosave

The Studio automatically saves the draft every 15 seconds while you are working. The save status indicator in the top bar always reflects the current state:
StatusMeaning
All changes savedThe draft is fully persisted
Unsaved changesEdits exist that have not been saved yet
Saving…An autosave or manual save is in progress
Save failedThe save request failed — hover for the error detail
If you close or reload the browser tab while the status shows “Unsaved changes”, Feedal will warn you before navigating away. However, autosave intervals are 15 seconds — use Cmd/Ctrl + S to save immediately before closing.

Manual save

Press Cmd + S (Mac) or Ctrl + S (Windows/Linux) at any time to save the draft immediately. The Save button in the top bar does the same thing and is disabled when there are no unsaved changes.

Publishing

Publishing creates an immutable published version — a permanent snapshot of the graph at the moment you clicked Publish. Once published, that version never changes. What happens when you publish:
  1. Feedal validates the graph (entry node set, fallback end node set, no orphan nodes, etc.).
  2. If validation passes, a new version is created and becomes the live form immediately.
  3. The draft continues to exist independently — you can keep editing without affecting the live version.
  4. The Results button appears in the top bar if it was not visible before.
If validation fails, a list of specific errors appears below the Publish button. Fix each issue and publish again.

Versions

Every time you publish, Feedal creates a new version with an incrementing version number (v1, v2, v3, …). Versions are permanent — they cannot be edited or deleted.
PropertyDraftPublished version
EditableYesNo
Respondents can fill it outNoYes
Visible to youYes (Studio)Yes (Results hub)
Responses attachedNoYes
Count per formAlways exactly 1One per publish
When you publish a new version, existing respondents who have an in-progress session on the previous version are not affected — they continue on the old version. Only new visitors see the new version.

Version history

The Version history tab in the Results hub shows every published version with its publish date, node count, and edge count. Selecting a version shows the responses collected specifically on that version.

Next steps

Publishing your form

Review the Publish button and what validation errors look like.

Keyboard shortcuts

Save with Cmd/Ctrl + S and undo with Cmd/Ctrl + Z.