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How Creighton handles Workspaces

• Typo3's Vision
• How Creighton handles Workspaces
• Moving pages in draft

• Notes
• Our process as taught in the Typo3 class
• A look at how it seems to be done.
• So, how does this happen

Again, when Creighton upgraded to the Typo3 version that offered versioning and workspaces, there was little to no documentation on this feature.  And the staff for the entire web site was very limited.  And as time passed and newer versions implemented, this feature was not explored or the suggested methodology adopted.  Until recently we did not really know how many people used versioning, or the workspaces.

When I looked, I was astounded.  A lot of people were utilizing this.  Time to learn it.

So I explored and immediately realized we weren't doing it the way it was envisioned.  Below you'll find how they envisioned us using the versioning and how I think it's actually being utilized here at Creighton.

Sometime in the near future we'll be upgrading Typo3 5.0 from version 4.x.  This will be a change (as well as huge improvement) for our users.  At that time I hope to implement Versioning the way the the developers expected it to be used.

 

The Creighton Typo3 trainers do an excellent job of covering this in the Typo3 class.  You can find it in the handout from that class on page 21.  If you cannot find your copy you may download one from here (pdf, doc).  The class is also available in Bluetrain.

So basically what follows is this.

Peter goes into the Draft workspace to change "Where we are" to "Where we are located" on our "Who we are" page.

He changes it but fails to notice that he's misspelled "located".

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He then clicks the "View Webpage" icon to see his change on the webpage (still not noticing that it's misspelled).

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In the preview he sees his mistake so he clicks the "edit element" pencil icon to fix it.

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He fixes his mistake (still in the preview) and clicks "Save and close document"

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Now it's fixed, he can  the <- icon to publish the content or he can choose to create a "Preview Link" to send to others to check the change (the preview link will stay active for 48 hours.  The preview is not accessible from anywhere but the generated link).

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If he publishes the page, he can refresh the above preview but the workspace version will be gone.

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To appreciate what I think happens let me throw out a few stats.  As of April 22, 2010 we have a total of:

• 4728 content elements were swapped (not published); 3,786 in Live workspace and 942 in Draft Workspace.
• 1174 content elements were published; 1,118 in Live workspace and 56 in Draft workspace.

• 1608 pages were swapped (not published); 1186 in Live workspace and 422 in Draft Workspace.
• 346 pages were published; 314 in Live workspace and 32 in Draft Workspace.

So it becomes apparent that a lot of folk don't even venture into Draft Workspace, but still create versions, swapping and publishing them.

Is this possible?  Totally.

However, it takes skill and perseverance to manage to do this.  

The following is conjecture, as I really don't know, it may not at all happen like this at all but as most developers know, users can and will find a way!  So to do this a user would have to find their way to the Versioning module, Display Versions or Workspace module for this to work as you cannot get the dual look (live and draft) from the Live workspace. 

Peter has to change "Where we are" to "Where we are located" on our "Who we are" page.

He clicks on the "Display Verisons" in the List Module, or finds "Versioning" in the contextual menu.

Or

Now, understand this.... the "

Versioning" in the contextual menu IS NOT the same as the Versioning in the menu on the left.   Yes it's confusing and I hope this is fixed in an upcoming version (no pun intended).

Back to where we were.  

In the Display Workspace work area, Peter clicks "Create new version" to make his change in (He labels it but does not need to label it).  

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Once he has his version to make the change to, he clicks the pencil to the left of the title to edit it.

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He can see immediately he's misspelled it.  He can immediately fix this.

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Once it's fixed, he can swap it with the current live version without ever going to Draft Workspace. 

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Alternately, Peter can go to the Versioning Module or to the Workspace module and publish or swap from either of these modules.

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