I was just wondering, would it be hard to have it check the typed area for text before clearing it and notify user that this will erase the data?

Something like
Click on REPLY TO THREAD and if there is text in field...
"Are you sure you want to create a new reply, any changes will be lost"

also, if your sitting on the page after you have already clicked to reply, a little popup on the right pops up every minute or so and says "Auto-Saved" is there a way to access this? where is it saving this, and what is the save purpose if we cant access it?