Versioning Metadata

[kst]

It seems as if Alfresco does not version metadata, at least not when I add the versioning aspect to an object. Is there a way to keep a history of the metadata changes?

[rwetherall]

Hi,

Alfresco does indeed version metadata.  When a content node is versioned the content and all the metadata is snap-shot and placed in the version store and can be recovered and viewed in the version history.

This may not be obvious via the UI, if you are seeing behaviour that disagrees with this statement then let me know the use case you are preforming and we can determine whether there is bug lurking somewhere or not.

Thanks,
Roy

[kevinr]

Roy is correct, once you have clickied "Allow Versioning" for an item (through the View Details->Version History panel) to make the system keep version history for the item it will version the content and meta-data.

To make the entire repository versionable by default, you can add a Rule to the top level node (Company Home) that adds the "versionable" aspect to all documents as they are created.

Thanks,

Kevin

[rwetherall]

Hi,

Further to what Kev mentions, adding …
     

        
<mandatory-aspects>
   <aspect>cm:versionable</aspect>
</mandatory-aspects>
‍‍‍‍‍

… to a type definition in a dictionary xml file should ensure that an initial version is created when content of that type is created.

Unfortunately when we tried this it didn't work, but it turned out to a simple fix and is fixed in the next nightly build.

I am also about to start working on auto-versioning support that will, if required, version content every time its saved.  This will be available in the 1.1 time frame.

Thanks,
Roy