Using Page Revisions
Have you ever wondered why there is a box where you can create a new revision when editing your webpages? This guide explains what Revisions are and how you can use them smartly.
What is a Revision?
Each time you open the editing interface for any of your webpages, you will see the option to "Create new revision" on the right side of the page.
This box is automatically checked, and each revision is logged regardless of whether or not you enter a revision log message. The revision history can be viewed in the Revisions tab of your webpage.
The more frequently a page is edited, the more line items will be listed in the Revisions tab.
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If you want to know how two iterations of your page differ, select two versions and click the "Compare selected revisions" button. Anything that was added will appear in green, and anything that was removed will appear in red.
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Note: We are limited in how many Revisions can be housed per page, and some Revisions will start being overridden once the list exceeds 20 entries.
How can Revisions be used?
There are two ways the revision history of a page can be useful.
Fixing mistakes. There may be instances where you make changes to your page that you don't want to keep. Perhaps you added a lot of content but realized you accidentally added the content to the incorrect page. Perhaps you removed content that you need to keep. Perhaps the way you added content impacted the layout of the page in a way that you don't like. For any of these reasons, you can simply revert back to a prior version of the page using Revisions.
Housing seasonal information. Many units have an event or program that occurs seasonally. A few examples include:
A departmental commencement ceremony at the end of each Spring quarter
Grad student admissions
Summer research programs
Internships/fellowships, to which students can apply at certain times of the year
In each of these cases, there is a time of the year where the webpage(s) you have dedicated to these programs, events, and applications are "active" and others times where they are "inactive." For example, there is a season where internship applications are open, and during that time the page includes a link to the application, etc. There is also a season where the evergreen information is kept, but there's no application button, deadline date, etc.
For the remainder of this guide, we will discuss using revisions for events or programs that occur seasonally.
Let's use commencement as an example. Commencement is an event that takes place once per year in June. It is reasonable to expect information about dates, location, deadlines, and logistics to be updated on an annual basis, perhaps during Winter and/or Spring quarters. This would be an example of its "active" time. On the other hand, this page will appear out of date if left up in Summer or Autumn quarters. This would be an example of its "inactive" time.
Revisions can be used to display one version of the page during the "active" season and a different iteration of the page during the rest of the year.
Creating and Naming Revisions with Intention
We will continue to use commencement as an example. In this case, start with an "active" page. This page would be created sometime in Winter or Spring quarter to include the current year's ceremony information, and might look something like this:
Keeping this information on your page from July-December makes it look outdated. To circumvent this without losing all of the formatting and other information you added, name this Revision to save it as a template for next year before updating the page for the "inactive" portion of the year.
Name the Current "In Season" Version
To name this version, open the editing interface. Add a note in the box labeled "Revision log message" and click save.
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Create your "Off Season" Version
Next, go back into your editing interface. Make the changes you need for your event or program's off-season. Update the Revision log message to reflect that this is the off-season template and click save.
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Check Your Work
Now visit the Revisions tab and look for your two versions.
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If you want to see an itemization of the changes, click the radio button next to each version and click "Compare selected revisions."
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Switch Between Versions as Needed
Now that you have templates for your event or programs active and inactive periods, you can switch between them as needed. To do so:
Visit the page in question.
Click the Revisions tab.
Choose the radio button next to the iteration (active or inactive) that you wish to display.
If you're unsure which version you want to use, click on the date information. It will show you a preview of that specific Revision.
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Once you have identified the version you want, click the radio button on that line and click "Revert."
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You'll be asked if you're sure you want to Revert to another version. Click Revert.
You'll receive confirmation of your change.
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Click the "View" tab to confirm that your page has been updated to the iteration you chose.
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Here is our "Inactive" Commencement page!
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Video Tutorial
The relevant section spans from 7:36-11:15.