Creating Content Quickly and Easily with the eZ Publish Website Interface

Version control mechanism

Recall from the first article in this series that the versioning feature makes it possible to have several versions of a content object. Generally, each time you click either the Create or Edit button on the Website Toolbar, a new version of the current content object is created and assigned a version number. Any previous versions of the object remain on the system. The system does not simply overwrite (or replace) the attributes of the object with the new data.

This is how eZ Publish keeps track of changes made by various users. An accidental or unwanted change can thus be undone by simply reverting an object back to a previous version.

The version with the Published status is the one that is displayed to site visitors. The Draft status is described below. Archived versions represent old content that you can revert to when needed.

You can see a list of existing versions for a content object, including drafts, by clicking the Manage versions button on the Website Toolbar when in edit mode. In other words, you first have to locate the content, then click the Edit button, and subsequently click the Manage versions button. Remember to discard the draft afterwards if you do not want to store the changes.

Editing conflicts

Editing conflicts can be a challenge on sites with a lot of content and / or multiple editors potentially working on the same content. Under some circumstances, there might be an editing conflict that needs to be resolved before you can continue to the edit page. Editing conflicts happen when several editors are editing the same content, making eZ Publish uncertain of which version of the content you want to edit. Do you want to edit the published version, or one of the drafts? Select the desired version of the content and click the Edit button.

Saving drafts

A draft contains content that has been saved but not yet published. At the bottom of the Content Editing Interface, next to the Send for publishing and Discard buttons is a third button labelled Store draft. Clicking this button will store the content as a draft and refresh the page in edit mode. You can also click the Store and exit button located on the Website Toolbar, to perform the save and exit operation. This will exit edit mode.

Resuming edits

You can resume working on a draft at a later time. However, only the user who created the draft can resume working on it, unlike the situation with published versions, where any content editor can edit them.

To view a list of your saved drafts and retrieve one for editing, you need to access your user profile (by clicking on the My profile link in the top right of a page). Within your profile page, click on the My drafts link. This will display a list of drafts belonging to you. Click on the corresponding Edit button to resume editing. You can also click on the name of a draft to bring up a preview, then click the Edit button on the Website Toolbar. This will bring up the Content Editing Interface. There, you can make any necessary edits, then publish or store the draft.

Discarding drafts

When in edit mode, you can discard a draft by clicking the Discard button. You can also delete drafts through your user profile. Select one or more drafts by marking the corresponding checkbox, then click the Remove button below the draft list. To remove all drafts, simply click the Empty Draft button. The My drafts page will then show the text "You have no drafts".