Eliminate "Create new revision" option

-1

I never use revisions. I don't want them. Personally, I would like to see an option to completely disable them.

I _would_ like to see them move to a separate table rather than being serialized, but forcing the use of revisions is a bad idea IMO. I don't want my DB to be growing that much every time I change a node, and I don't want to have to delete a revision every time I update content.

Instead of making it an all-or-nothing global option, let's allow the site admin to turn it on or off as a permission. On a site of some complexity, there will be situations where node versioning is highly desired, and other places within the same site where it's not at all necessary. The site admin can already set up defaults for different node types, so that, for example, forums and blogs don't create revisions by default but books do. We could extend this one step further by having a node-level permission called "override versioning" or similar that would let users see the checkbox on their node edit page or not. I think most people either use versions all the time or don't use versions at all. It's darn-near mandatory for certain content types, and almost irrelevant for others. So i think a good compromise is to have the site admin set up administer->content->settings properly then turn off the "confusing" revisions checkbox for most users via a permission.

Any more thoughts on this?

I thought this is what the checkbox in content>default workflow does, but it's not the case. If I set up blog posts to have revisions, the only people who create revisions are people who have "administer nodes" access.

That's not very logical, considering there is this option in 'default workflow'. One would assume that if a node type is setup to create revisions, then it always creates revisions...

What happened to this suggestion? I really like the idea, and would like to see it implemented.

I am using Drupal for a new informational site, where the information is about legal options. So accuracy is crucial, and with several editors co-operatively maintaining it, there is plenty of scope for small errors creeping in.

For this sort of site, the idea of being able to enforce creation of new revisions on a per-node-type basis sounds like a critical measure to maintain an audit trail of changes.

It would make Drupal a much more powerful tool for informational sites, especially if combined with the proposal to allow revisions to be compared.

Drupal already does a very good job of community-type functions, and these audit-trail features would greatly improve its suitability for management of more canonical types of content.

If anyone had the energy, a further tweak to help information-type sites would be to separate out some of the permissions for nodes: see http://drupal.org/node/16124

Nick Nasser has this right:

I think the idea that revisions are a per-node-type option is right on.

I’m going to be writing a proposal for a unified and more powerful node-type system. This idea should be part of the options that you can set per node-type: ”[ ] Can revisions of this node type be made?”

I think this would make a lot more sense and be easier to manage/find. I also think that an administration page for all node-types would be of some value, so I’m not proposing that this option be buried under layers of admin pages.

I'm entirely in favour of a revision setting per node-type.
Defaults could: node and most types=no rev; book=by default.
This is essential for a useful wiki module.

Just a ditto on the node level option for turning revisions on/off. I am currently evaluating drupal for my organisation and revision management is a key requirement for the main parts of the site, but I do foresee adding blog and discussion nodes later in which the revision system is not required/desirable.

Attached is a hack to always create a new revision. It's a "hack" because it just converts the checkbox into a hidden form field that always true. An enterprising individual with access to the edit the page could submit the value as unchecked. (This would have to be malicious.)

A better solution would implement the logic out of the reach of mere users. I'm not ready to dive that deep yet, though...

Revision creation by node type can actually already be done.

1. Go to: administer >> content
2. Click the configure tab.
3. Click the content types tab.
4. Each node item is listed. Click the configure link next to a type.
5. Under Workflow, in Default options, you'll see checkmarks for all the publish options. Check or uncheck them as desired.
6. Repeat for each content type.

If this solves the problem, please close the bug. :)

I'll take the heat and close this. You can set this globally per node type (and have been able to all through 4.6 at the very least), and regular non-admin users can't see/set the checkbox whether on or off.