Extending the manager log for versioning?

Is it possible to extend the manager log to include more information? I was thinking that if the manager log could be extended to include more precise information like the specific action that was executed (edit/publish/delete) and maybe even include bits of edited content it could become a poor mans versioning system. It is already recording the action and the user and the timestamp, all that it needs is to include content and a way to revert the edit. Has anyone considered this or is this not a good idea?

I think it’s a brilliant idea! So then you just dive in your logs to redo anything what you (or another user) did. It sounds real usefull, even just to track down what has changed over the days. And because of the log already tracking it might not be to hard to implement...?

Versioning is not trivial at all or I can assure you you’d already have it in modx.

The manager log table should definitely not be used for this purpose as every single action would get logged and mixed in with the manager log. You also need separate meta-information such as current live version, etc. so you might as well do it all in a proper set of dedicated versioning tables.

This is definitely in our sites for Revolution and there may be a solution for Evolution as well.

That’s what I figured. I was just thinking out loud and since the manager log was already listening to these events I thought it may be able to make use of it.

Another idea I was having is to simply use a plug-in to store a copy of the edited content in a dedicated table and then have a module to allow you to view and rollback.

I personally feel comfortable with database backups and can easily retrieve data from a few weeks ago if needed...but an interface would be nice

Have a look at the Auditor module for an example of versioning that basically uses the database to do the heavy lifting, not MODx. It may seem a bit heavyweight for some purpose I agree and it needs MYSQL 5, but it may may suit your needs. Its buddy tool modx-auditor-analysis allows analysis of the versioned data.

shamblett; I did look into it and it is very interesting.