Simple but effective Joomla! article versioning

The extension “Simple Content Versioning” for Joomla! is one of those extensions you should be installing in every Joomla! website by default, together with Akeeba Backup (backups), Admin Tools (security) and JCE (advanced wysiwyg editor). The extension setup takes almost no time at all, making it a no-brainer.

It gives a Joomla! site easy to use article version control or in simpler terms: automatic backups for your articles. Do note, it only works with default Joomla! articles (no K2, ZOO etc support). 

Every time an article is saved with the “Save” or “Apply” button in the article edit view, it also saves a copy of that article in a separate database table. The benefit is that your Article Manager stays clean and uncluttered (only shows the latest version of every article) and you can restore previous versions of any article from the separate database table with a few simple clicks.

If actively used, it allows you to go back and forth between different versions of an article to, for example, fix errors or re-add accidentally lost information. If not actively used, consider the extension the easiest way to constantly and automatically create backups of Joomla! articles, which can be restored whenever needed. 

How to use “Simple Content Versioning”

The below screenshots give you a quick idea of what this looks like. 

Firstly you will need to install the latest version of this Joomla! article versioning extension from the fatica.net website. Then you might want to (but do not have to!) change a few settings in Extensions > Plugin Manager. Use the filter on the left to search for “version” and open the listed plugins (Content – Version and Button – Versioning) one by one. Also make sure they are both enabled. 

Then go to a Joomla! article under Content > Article Manager and open it. Give it a try by clicking “Apply” in the toolbar, making a change to your article and click “Apply” again. In the bottom (under the editor area) you will see a new editor button “Versions (2)”. 

Click the button to open the interface. You will see a list of all “versions” of your article and can preview these versions, apply them as the active article (overwriting the current article version/status!) and delete them. This interface is not the most user friendly or well designed, but it will get the job done. 

There you go! Joomla! article versioning so simple a monkey could do it!