[dokuwiki] Direct link to show what changed in a revision, in the Old Revisions page

From: Pedro Gimeno <parigalo@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: dokuwiki@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2011 14:30:18 +0200
When I enter the Old Revisions page, I am disappointed to see that the
effect of clicking on the diff icon is to show the difference with
respect to the current revision, instead of to the previous revision.

When I go to the page's history in order to review the changes made to a
page, what I usually want is to track what was changed in each of the
revisions and by who.

In the history page, MediaWiki has, for each revision, a link to compare
to the current version (cur) and a link to compare to the previous
verson (prev). With MediaWiki, I can track all the changes from a
certain revision to the current one, by opening each (prev) link in a
new tab and follow the changes.

In Dokuwiki, I can't do that. If I want to know the changes done to a
particular revision, I have to put a check mark on that revision and
another on the previous one, and submit the form. Forms can't be
submitted to a new tab, so I have to use the back button of my browser
to go back to the history page, and the check marks have disappeared.
Often I forget what was the revision I was comparing to.

Yes, *sometimes* I want to get a summary of all the changes from a
certain revision to the current one. But I want that at most once per
visit to the Old Revisions page. I'd be happy to use the form for these
particular cases. Most of the time what I want is to review all the
changes made since a particular date by each user, one by one.

Therefore, I'd be grateful if a configuration option was added, allowing
to specify what kind of diff to show in the Old Revisions page: diff to
current or diff to prev. Or maybe both.

Other possible alternatives to consider:

1.- Instead of forcing to submit a form, make a dynamically changing
link (using JavaScript), available only when two revisions are checked,
that  links to the diff between the two selected versions. That would
allow me to keep visual track of the last revision checked (even if it's
a bit counterintuitive - "changes to a revision" is a very intuitive
concept) and open it in a new tab, then uncheck the lower one and check
the upper one and open that in another new tab, etc. which would meet my
needs.

2.- Instead of having a direct link to the diff between the current
revision and each of the others, make a dynamic link that is active only
when there is exactly one revision selected, which points to the diff
between that revision and the current one.

3. Offer always both kinds of diff in the Old Revisions page.

(3) is troublesome from an UI perspective. Maybe the 3D glasses icon
should be together with the texts 'cur' and prev', like this:
cur[glasses_icon] prev[glasses_icon] or vice versa.

(2) would work like this. When no revision is checked, there would be a
greyed text at the top like: [Show difference with the current
revision], maybe with a glasses icon. When there is exactly one revision
checked, the greyed text becomes a clickable link. When there are two
revisions checked, the text becomes greyed again.

(1) is similar but would require exactly two versions checked instead of
exactly one. It would make the submit button unnecessary (for those with
JavaScript).

Of course, the more features, the better. A configuration option
allowing choice of whether to show (cur) (current behaviour), (prev) or
both would be best. It can be combined with (1) and (2) above at the
same time.

In my own wiki software I implemented (prev) only. I had plans to add
(1) above but since it has only three users and we're fairly happy as
is, I didn't find enough motivation. But maybe I can help implement any
of these features. My wiki software doesn't support namespaces or ACLs
and I needed those for a different project, thus my choice of Dokuwiki,
but this problem is major for me.

Please let me know if I can help anyhow.
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[dokuwiki] Direct link to show what changed in a revision, in the Old Revisions page

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