Question

Since everything is versioned, is there an easy way to revert a topic to a previous revision? I looked at 'More topic actions' and didn't see anything.

I was wondering if this feature might be in a different location or with a different name? My users often request this and I was surprised when I could not find it.

Thanks for any info.

Environment

-- EricHanson - 05 Dec 2006

Answer

If you answer a question - or someone answered one of your questions - please remember to edit the page and set the status to answered. The status selector is below the edit box.

There is no one step action at this time. There is an enhancement request at CopyPreviousRevisionTopicContentIntoNewRevision.

Current procedure:

• Go to "more"
• Look for "View previous topic revision" bullet
• Type revision you want to restore
• Check the "raw text format" box
• Click on "View revision
• Copy all content to the clipboard
• Back out to top revision
• Edit the topic and replace its content with the clipboard

This will restore a previous revision (with a new top revision)

There is also a way to permanently roll back the top revision. This is mainly used to clean up spam; only admins can do that. Read the details in lib/TWiki.cfg.

-- PeterThoeny - 05 Dec 2006

I modified UI/Edit.pm (and template/edit.pattern.tmpl) to provide support for editing older versions of a topic. I incorporated the ideas from HowToWatermarkOldRevisions. To get access, copy the Edit url and append "&rev=#" where # is an older version. I am trying to determine the best way to expose this ability to the user. Maybe on the History page? I am attaching the diff's to UI/Edit.pm (version TWIKI-V4.1.1) below. Is this a good idea? Are there pitfalls, or concerns by providing this ability?

-- CraigMeyer - 26 Mar 2007

I think this is really necessary. Roll backs are ridiculously manual. What would be nice would be able to simply save an older revision as the current revision (ie. not go through the process of editing at all).

-- AdamHyde - 27 Apr 2007

Agreed, a simple rollback is nice to have. However, I would prefer to have one intermediate step to confirm the rollback; bumping the user into edit mode is one way to achieve that, a dialog box to confirm is another one.

If you are a programmer you can contribute a patch and suggest to have this accepted. Start in CopyPreviousRevisionTopicContentIntoNewRevision. See also ReadmeFirst, PatchGuidelines and TWikiRelease04x01Process.

-- PeterThoeny - 27 Apr 2007