Arjé Cahn recently screencasted a demonstration of the new version compare functionality that will be released in Hippo CMS version 7.4 (due June 2010). While (as Arjé concedes) versioning and version compare are nothing new, the Hippo team has added a subtle twist that I think makes a vast improvement.
When an approver is reviewing a change to a previously approved asset, Hippo CMS defaults to a version compare view. Adds, changes, and deletes are highlighted by color and strikethrough (see screenshot).
The concept reminds me of source code control system commit emails that highlight changes to code whenever anyone checks anything in (click on screenshot for a larger view). I do a lot of web development team mentorship and I have come to rely commit emails.
They allow me to quickly determine if there are any material changes that I need to dig into and saves me loads of time (in the case of the screenshot example, no important changes have been made). I am wondering if the Hippo implementation adds excerpts of changes in their workflow notification emails. That would be convenient.
I really like the Hippo team’s pragmatic approach to enhancing Hippo CMS. Rather than adding lots of a new “checklist” features (that make the product more complicated), they tend to focus on refining and streamlining functionality that customers probably already use. It is that “make it suck less” philosophy that makes software continuously better for the users but tends not to get recognized by most analysts and buyers.
Keep up the good work Hippo!
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Well, Midgard CMS has been doing revision control like that since approximately 2005…
http://www.midgard-project.org/documentation/revision-control-system-with-midcom/
Thanks for the recognition, Seth!
Henri – you are right that doing revision control inline is not new in itself. The subtle difference is that “[..] when an approver is reviewing a change to a previously approved asset, Hippo CMS defaults to a version compare view.”
Hippo CMS shows the change immediately when an approver looks at it. I checked out the Midgard link and functionally the result is quite similar (just like all those other CMSses out there), but users will have to go through quite some steps to get there (dropdown -> Show revision history -> select a version -> dropdown -> view differences). It’s just too much work.
My take on it: users don’t want “advanced”. It doesn’t even have to be complete. They want ’simple’ and ‘good enough’. So we limit the number of clicks whenever possible. And if we can give the user the information they’re expecting anyway, but earlier in the process, then let’s give it to them. You can always add advanced, but you can never add simple
Arjé
BTW – I need to give credit to the Daisy guys who wrote the excellent HTML DIFF view (http://code.google.com/p/daisydiff/).
Seth – the screencast link in the top doesn’t seem to work..
Fixed it. Sorry about that!
Likewise, Drupal has had the ‘Diff module’ since 2005 or so. A nice illustration of the ’side-by-side’ display can be found here: http://test.tschannen.net/node/8/revisions/view/2975/3014
It’s really must-have functionality for a cms with more than one or two authors.