Version Control module for ProcessWire

Version Control module For ProcessWire CMS/CMF. Copyright (c) 2013-2022 Teppo Koivula

This module uses hooks provided by ProcessWire to catch page edits and store revision data in a series of custom database tables, so that it can be later retrieved, reviewed, and restored.

Note that the module provides settings which you can use to define the specific fieldtypes, fields, and templates to enable version control for. Out of the box the module won't track anything at all.

While editing a page with version control enabled, a revision toggle (icon link that opens a list of previous revisions) is placed next to fields for which the module is enabled for. From this list you can select a specific revision to which you would like to rollback the value of the field.

In addition the version history can be viewed on Page level via the History tab automaticaly added to Page Editor for templates that have tracking enabled.

Supported fieldtypes and inputfields

All native ProcessWire fieldtypes and inputfields, apart from those that either don't directly store values at all (repeaters fields, fieldsets), or only store hashed values (password), should be supported:

• Email
• Datetime
• Text (regular and multi-language)
• Textarea (regular and multi-language)
• Page Title (regular and multi-language)
• Checkbox
• Integer
• Float
• URL
• Page
• Module
• File
• Image
• Selector
• Options

Supported third party fieldtypes:

• ProFields Textareas

Note that if a specific fieldtype isn't listed here, it doesn't necessarily mean that it won't work with this module – it might just not have been tested yet.

You can enable support for any installed fieldtype locally via the "Compatible fieldtypes" setting, which can be found under "Advanced Settings" from Version Control module configuration.

Following inputfields are confirmed to be supported:

• TinyMCE
• CKEditor (regular and inline mode)
• Text (+ other inputfields using <input> HTML element, such as Email)
• Textarea (+ other inputfields using regular <textarea> HTML element)
• Select
• File
• Image
• Selector

Requirements

• ProcessWire >= 3.0.112
• PHP >= 7.1.0

Please note that this module is mainly developed and tested under the latest stable version of ProcessWire. This also means that none of the ProcessWire 2.x versions of are supported. In case you're using ProcessWire 2.x >= 2.4.1, check out the legacy branch of Version Control:

• https://github.com/teppokoivula/VersionControl/tree/legacy

For ProcessWire 2.x versions before 2.4.1 the Version Control for Text Fields module provides similar features, but is limited to text based fields only:

• https://github.com/teppokoivula/VersionControlForTextFields

Getting started

Copy (or clone with git) VersionControl folder to /site/modules/, go to Admin > Modules, hit "Check for new modules" and install Version Control. Supporting modules Process Version Control and Page Snapshot are installed automatically.

After installing this module you need to configure it. Navigate to Admin > Modules > Version Control for module configuration settings.

Updating from VersionControl 1.x to 2.x

Here are some important considerations if you're updating from VersionControl 1.x to 2.x:

1. The GUI – particularly the field-level revision lists, but other parts of the module as well – have gone through major changes. This isn't really something you should worry about, but it's good to know that these features may indeed look very different after the update.

2. Since there have been various changes, including some related to namespaces, you'll have to visit the Modules page in Admin and click the "Refresh" button. Without this some features may not work as expected – or may not work at all.

3. Cleanup features were split into a separate module called Version Control Cleanup. After updating from 1.x to 2.x of the module you need to manually install the Version Control Cleanup module and reconfigure the cleanup options via Version Control module settings.

Note: it's probably a good idea to check what you've got in the "Cleanup Settings" section of the Version Control module before updating.

Other than that, things should "just work". Please note, though, that the requirements have changed quite a bit, so before updating make sure that your ProcessWire and PHP versions are high enough.

As always with an update from one major version to another, it's a good idea to keep a backup of the old version (at minimum the module, but preferably your whole site) available just in case something goes wrong.

Development

Following content is about developing the module itself, so feel free to skip this unless you're interested in submitting a pull request or otherwise participating in the development process.

Resources

Resources (JS and CSS) required by this module are in the res directory. For each resource there's a ".min" version, containing a minified version. There's no real build process, but minified files can be created via command-line by using cleancss (https://github.com/clean-css/clean-css-cli) and uglifyjs (https://github.com/mishoo/UglifyJS):

# CSS
find res/css/ -maxdepth 1 -type f -name "*.css" ! -name "*.min.*" \
    -exec echo {} \; \
    -exec sh -c 'cleancss --source-map -o "${1%.css}.min.css" "$1"' sh {} \;

# JS
find res/js/ -maxdepth 1 -type f -name "*.js" ! -name "*.min.*" \
    -exec echo {} \; \
    -exec sh -c 'uglifyjs "$1" --compress --mangle --source-map -o "${1%.js}.min.js"' sh {} \;

Note: aforementioned commands should be run in the module directory.

Diff Match and Patch

The Diff Match and Patch libraries offer robust algorithms to perform the operations required for synchronizing plain text. In the scope of current module, the JavaScript implementation of Diff Match and Patch is used to render diff between different revisions of a field value.

Diff Match and Patch is copyright (c) 2006 Google Inc. and released under the Apache License, Version 2.0. More information about this library: https://github.com/google/diff-match-patch.

License

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301, USA.

(See included LICENSE file for full license text.)