Save (update) post edits via AJAX

One of the major frustrations while editing posts/pages is that after saving, two things happen:

• The admin page is reloaded, which takes time
• More importantly, the cursor position is lost

If you’re working on longer posts — especially when copy-editing, or if working in HTML mode and making small adjustments where frequent previews are needed — losing the current position, then finding the point where you left off is unnecessarily frustrating and time-consuming.

An elegant solution to this problem would be if the updates would be done over AJAX. Actually there used to be a plugin for this, but it hasn’t been updated in over 5 years and it doesn’t work with current WP versions anymore.

Is there an (easy) way to either:

• Fix that plugin, or
• Hack post.php to add a working “AJAX Save” button?

Interestingly, WordPress already has an AJAX update functionality which it uses when Auto-Saving. Perhaps that could be starting point?

I truly believe this is an important usability issue and would greatly appreciate your help. Thank you!