Backup copies of Edited pages

[espressoguy]

Newbie here.....

It's my understanding that when an existing page is edited in TP, the previous version of that page is replaced with the new page ...right?  Does anyone know of a mod that would keep previous versions of pages for a time (perhaps a couple of weeks)?  If not I may be interested in doing this ...so if anyone knows offhand of a section of code where a function is called with knowledge of the exact record identifier for a page about to be modified, let me know.  I think I would simply get the page and store it ..probably in a diffferent table -so that it could be retrieved if needed.  Wiki's do this, of course and they even have the capability of showing the difference between two versions but for now I'd settle for just a backup copy of the page. 

[G6Cad]

Please read the Posting Guidelines

[espressoguy]

Just to clarify, this thread is not about backing up an entire installation of TP and/or SMF.  It's about a feature that many wiki's have whereby a backup copy of a page is saved every time that page is edited.  It's my understanding that TP does not currently have this capability.

[JPDeni]

Right. It does not.

What I do? I highlight and copy the code I have and then paste it into a text editor. If it's something that I want to save for a while, then I save the file. I do so much tweak-save-tweak-save sort of stuff when I'm writing a page that my whole database would be filled with old versions of the page.

I would think that it would take quite a bit of rewriting the code to do what you are suggesting.

if anyone knows offhand of a section of code where a function is called with knowledge of the exact record identifier for a page about to be modified, let me know.

It's the page number. When you go to edit a page, look at your Address bar and see what it says. The record number for the article table will be in the URL.

[espressoguy]

I would think that it would take quite a bit of rewriting the code to do what you are suggesting.

...yes, well this is definitely not a feature that everyone would want ,and as you mention, the tweak-and-save changes could get ungainly.   The way the Wiki's do it is that for every save there's an option for the user to say what has been changed in this edit.   Also, at least in version control software, used for software development, the entire doc is not saved; only the changes are saved and they conform to a special syntax saying something like "Line x through y was changed to lines k through j" etc. ...for each change.  Of course, since web pages are just text, the file size is relatively small by todays standards of memory so saving entire pages for a fixed number of days is a real possibility.  And coding it could be relatively straightforward though not trivial.  But implementing it as a complete "mod" that any user could install and use could get rather involved.   

Perhaps I should mention that I generally don't like wikis because they require the user to memorize a special syntax and procedures in order to use them effectively.  But when you have a collaborative site where several users can edit a page, it's nice to have a way of getting back to a previous version of a page if someone unwittingly blows-away some important information or messes up a page so much that fixing it in its present form would take too long.