[34]Content versioning for Joomla!

[rockarena]

Content Versioning, I agree, is a must have. I wouldn't make it a default component because imo it's a bit overkill for smaller sites. It shoudl be a component that can be switched on and off if people prefer to use it. I've been thinking about an implementation and came up with something.

States.
Each article should have a couple of states:
Published
Under Review
Draft
Offline

Roles.
The above implements some user roles:
Publisher
Editor
Contributor

Classes.
I've also been thinking about classes for this.
Article: the article
VersionContainer: a container class that holds all the articles.
VersionConnector: The connector class that connects the VersionContainer to the Versionable.
Versionable: a respresentation of the article that has one of the above states.


It's just thoughts off course and maybe not very clear. I can put it on UML if anyone is interested.

[westperth]

With regards to the importance of content versioning:

The Australian Government has released new guidelines for all government websites (including agencies, authorities, councils, etc). These guidelines are extremely detailed. One aspect of these guidelines is that records are kept of every published item of content on a website. This is an extract from these guidelines:

It is essential for agencies to create and retain full and accurate records of all the
advice and information published on the website even after that information is
superseded. Agencies can be held to account, sometimes in a court of law, for any
advice or information it issues via the web or via other means of communication. If
an agency does not have appropriate record keeping systems and procedures in
place to capture and retain these records in a reliable and durable form, it may find
that it is unable to account for its actions with reference to authentic evidence of its
past decisions and activities. Website records must be included in the Retention
and Disposal component of an agency’s Record Keeping Plan.

Another section even mentions the requirement to record meta-data, which goes beyond simply backing up an article.

agencies must identify records that exist on their websites, or which are about to be
placed online. They must ensure that these records are captured into a formal
record–keeping system, along with sufficient metadata documenting the content,
context and structure of the records, and their placement on the website.

Part of these guidelines can be viewed here: http://www.egov.dpc.wa.gov.au/documents ... _final.pdf

These guidelines are strict and fines will be issued to any agency not keeping accurate records of online content. Unfortunately, as Joomla doesn't suppot this kind of record keeping, the CMS can not be used for any Australian government website (there are over 10,000).

I personally develop websites for many state government agencies and it's a shame that it is against government policy to use such a brilliant CMS due to it lacking one vital feature. Joomla is perect for smaller agencies that don't require an enterprise CMS (<500 pages). Hopefully content versioning will be considered a higher pirority in future developments of Joomla.

[stacy_w_decker]

Thanks for this addition. I'm guessing that Uncle Sam will not be to far behind in something like this as well.
One of the simplest workarounds at the moment would be to create a _history table for each existing table with supporting triggers to store any changes made. This would not be supported by the front end but would be accessible by the dba and you would get to use Joomla to boot.

The really kewl part will be when Joomla is updated to review/recover historical information stored in the tables at a level that a regular user will be able to understand.

I look forward to this day for Joomla.
Stacy

[epleste]

Looks as though we didn't make the cut

Oh well, I wonder how hard writing an extension is...

[westperth]

If anybody thinks they have the capabilities to write a content versioning extension for 1.5 - with a front-end - send me a message. I might be interested in financially supporting the development or marketing it commercially.

[trouble]

Looks as though we didn't make the cut

Oh well, I wonder how hard writing an extension is...

Unless I'm missing something this is already in development as part of the Google Summer of Code project: http://developer.joomla.org/gsoc2008/ve ... ntrol.html

[jomolian]

I've had a look a the pre-alpha versioning component and, working on govt site of 30,000+ pages, my comments are as follows;

Joomla stacks up well feature wise against most of the commercial/entriprise cms's. Mysource Matrix is a bit better.
Along with simple and robust link management (e.g. linkr) functionality, approval workflows and versioning must be included to make Joomla! a fully fledged option for government. To support practical versioning, assuming an off-line draft of a publish page can be achieved, the following mundane functions must be covered;
1) CRUD - Creation, retrieval, updating and deletion of versions from a logical design and user point of view. 2) The comparison and merging of content between versions must be made to behave as simple as mark-up edits do in MS Word and other word processors. Using strikethrough text for deletions and coloured italicised text for additions isn't a big ask. 3) The ability to work on a range of linked articles and perform a 'roll forward' - were the information is published ahead of the target date to assist with say, staff training. This will happen! A lot! 4) Retrieving a snapshot of the entire site as it a appearred at a point in time (for audits) will blow out the complexity of your system. A compromise is best allowing for the site to store 2 or 3 releases but export to disk fully functional snapshots beyond that. Snapshots can also be use for taking cohesive unit of published information on the road or to remote locations to service indigenous and rural citizens.

[jbeall]

Any update on this? This sounds like a part of what I was looking for, I posted here about this here:
http://forum.joomla.org/viewtopic.php?f=428&t=383881

[fatica]

Our open source Simple Content Versioning extension does most of what's described here.

http://www.fatica.net/downloads/simple- ... oning.html

[craigieb]

This is probably going to sound really dumb, but what it the point of this proposed system, in practical terms? I mean from a publisher point of view, either an article is ready or it is not! What areas would this feature be used for?

[Hackwar]

If your author edits that article, the current one is still online, until the publisher approves of the new one. (Just one of the many possibilities)

[craigieb]

Got ya - I have yet to find a client who embraces the power of the CMS in this way, hence the dumb question!

[jomolian]

Got ya - I have yet to find a client who embraces the power of the CMS in this way, hence the dumb question!

Hi, all lack businesses or govt depts with intranets or an internet presence require this functionality. You should get out more