History Plugin

Shows a complete history of a topic.

The output can arbitrarily be formatted. An example for a Wikipedia-like history is included.

When using PatternSkin enabling the HistoryPlugin changes the "History" link in the bottom action bar so it opens a page with a nice user interface where you can select the versions to compare.

With other skins for Foswiki you will need to tweak the templates.

If CompareRevisionsAddOn is installed and activated the "History" user interface will allow you to choose how the changes are rendered (interweaved vs side-by-side, and context).

If RevCommentPlugin is installed and activated the "History" page will show the comments entered for each revision.

This plugins is designed to work together with CompareRevisionsAddOn and RevCommentPlugin but works well on its own or with just one of the two other plugins.

Syntax Rules

Syntax: %HISTORY{ attributes }%

Deprecated (but supported) parameters:

Additional macros

The following macros are expanded only if there is a corresponding %HISTORY% on the page. If more than one %HISTORY% is used on the same page, the values from the last one will be used.

• %HISTORY_REV1%: Oldest revision from the printed history
• %HISTORY_REV2%: Latest revision from the printed history
• %HISTORY_NREV%: Number of the printed revisions
• %HISTORY_MAXREV%: Latest available revision of the topic

Custom settings:

If the preference variable HISTORYPLUGIN_NREV is set, it overrides the default number of revisions shown in history when the topic History link is selected. For example, the following setting changes the revisions shown to 5. Copy this setting into a topic to enable it for a pariticular topic, user, Web, or site wide. See System.PreferenceSettings.

   * Set HISTORYPLUGIN_NREV = 5

Examples

The call %HISTORY% shows a simple list of available revisions like

r3 - 17 Feb 2005 - 09:56 - AnUser
r2 - 31 Dec 2004 - 10:22 - AnotherUser
r1 - 15 Nov 2003 - 01:23 - YetAnotherUser

For a more complex example see the attached oopshistory.tmpl which also allows the comparison of two selected revisions.

Example screenshot of the topic history with HistoryPlugin enabled and working with CompareRevisionsAddOn and RevCommentPlugin.

Installation Instructions

You do not need to install anything in the browser to use this extension. The following instructions are for the administrator who installs the extension on the server.

Open configure, and open the "Extensions" section. "Extensions Operation and Maintenance" Tab -> "Install, Update or Remove extensions" Tab. Click the "Search for Extensions" button. Enter part of the extension name or description and press search. Select the desired extension(s) and click install. If an extension is already installed, it will not show up in the search results.

You can also install from the shell by running the extension installer as the web server user: (Be sure to run as the webserver user, not as root!)

cd /path/to/foswiki
perl tools/extension_installer <NameOfExtension> install

If you have any problems, or if the extension isn't available in configure, then you can still install manually from the command-line. See https://foswiki.org/Support/ManuallyInstallingExtensions for more help.

Test if the installation was successful:

• Here should appear the history of this document inline:
  r1.1 - 2024-12-23 - 09:07 - UnknownUser
• Show the history of Main.WikiUsers

Dependencies

Change History