Managing versions

Note

This section describes the djangocms-versioning package used by the django CMS quickstart project. Because django CMS is modular, other installations may offer different version states and actions, or no version history.

With djangocms-versioning, published and archived versions remain available in the version history. This guide shows how to find the versions of a page, compare them, and restore or discard one. A discarded or deleted draft cannot be recovered. The states themselves — draft, published, unpublished and archived — and the actions available in each state are listed in the version states reference.

Open the “manage versions” view

Either

• Select “Pages…” in the project menu of the toolbar and look for the page the versions of which you want to manage.

• Click on the status indicator to open the dropdown menu.

• Select “Manage versions…”.

or

• Preview or edit the page the versions of which you want to manage.

• Click on the version menu and choose “Manage versions…”.

  

What the version list shows

Each row describes one version: the dates it was created and last modified, its title and language, the user who created it, its state, and the action buttons available for that state.

Compare two versions

1. Select exactly two versions to compare by checking the box on their left side.

2. From the pull-down menu marked ------- select “Compare versions”.

3. Click “Go”.

   

Added content is marked green, deleted content is marked red.

Revert to a previous version

If a published change turns out to be wrong, you can restore an earlier version:

1. Open the “manage versions” view of the page (see above) and make sure you are looking at the right language.

2. Find the version you want to restore. If you are unsure, compare it to the current version first (see “Compare two versions” above).

3. Click the “Revert” action button of that unpublished or archived version. A new draft with the content of that version is created.

   Note

   If a draft already exists, django CMS asks you whether to discard it — a page can only have one draft per language at a time.

4. Review the new draft and click “Publish” in the toolbar to make it live.

Reverting never deletes history: the previously published version is marked “unpublished” and remains available in the version list.

Discard a draft

To throw away unpublished changes:

1. Open the page in preview or edit mode.

2. Open the version menu in the toolbar and select “Discard Changes”, then confirm.

Alternatively, delete the draft from the “manage versions” view using its delete action button. In both cases the published version stays untouched and remains live; only the unpublished draft is removed. Discarding a draft cannot be undone — if you might need the changes later, archive the draft instead.