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planned
R
Ross Binkley
Please add the ability to view diffs between particular revisions of a document.
Currently, you have to look through each revision one by one to see what changed between two particular points in time. It would be great to be able to view all of the changes that were made to a document within a particular range of revisions at once, as can be done on Wikipedia or almost any wiki-style site.
The user should be able to select two particular revisions from a document's history. The user would then be shown a diff of the document between those two revisions with all changes made in any revision between those two highlighted in the document.
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Justin Hunter
Update on this one for everyone! We have a few different designs we're considering. We have not begun work on this, but I'm moving the status to Planned because this is a big win for everyone. Here's an example of one of the designs we're considering. Would love feedback from everyone!
B
Bailey Keyes
This would also be great for other types of documents as well like photos, CAD drawings, PSD files - any sort of files that require revisions - I like the green and red color indications of added content and removed content from Justin Hunter's pinned post it looks clean and easy to understand - it would be nice to also see - like a sticky note feature added to that or comments by individuals similar to what you see on google docs - it would be great too, to have on certain documents like word/google docs to even be able to edit the revision right there or even just markup notes on the doc.
Justin Hunter
Merged in a post:
Document Change Log
Alessandra Tomasina
Based on the current documents change tracking system, when you access a doc's history, a popup window is displayed containing the whole document, and you have to scroll through it all the way down in order to find individual changes made by yourself or other users over time. It would be great to just access those changes directly in a change log or document history.
Justin Hunter
Justin Hunter
Justin Hunter
planned
Justin Hunter
Update on this one for everyone! We have a few different designs we're considering. We have not begun work on this, but I'm moving the status to Planned because this is a big win for everyone. Here's an example of one of the designs we're considering. Would love feedback from everyone!
R
Ross Binkley
Justin Hunter: The interface looks good to me! Just to double-check, though, the drop-down at the top of each side of the comparison window does allow you to select an arbitrary revision on both sides of the comparison, right? So that you can compare the differences between any revision and any other revision?
Justin Hunter
under review
Justin Hunter
Thanks for the suggestion, Ross Binkley! As we consider this, I had a quick follow-up question:
How would you like the diff to be presented? There are a couple of options that immediately come to mind: Github style code diffs and Microsoft Word track changes diffs. Obviously the second one is more aligned with Docs, but I'm not sure if it's the best and would love your feedback.
R
Ross Binkley
Justin Hunter: As someone who deals with code all day, my personal preference would be for something more like what Wikipedia or Github uses, where additions, removals, or modifications are highlighted and long sections of unchanged comment are clipped from the diff view.
I personally tend to prefer side-by-side comparisons, as in Wikipedia or TortoiseMerge (a freeware Windows tool for comparing and merging source code changes,) but a single view as in Github or Word would also be fine.
The primary important factors for me, though, are:
- That it be able to display and highlight all of the combined changes that happened between any two selected revisions and
- That it have a quick and easy way to skip from one modified portion of the document to the next. This could be accomplished either by omitting large unmodified sections from the view entirely or by providing buttons that jump to the previous or next change in the doc.
As long as those two conditions are met, whether it looks more like Word with change tracking or Wikipedia or Github doesn't really make a lot of difference to me personally. I suspect users who are less familiar with dealing with code would probably prefer a view that looks more like Word's change tracking than Github or Wikipedia, though.
Matthew Eshleman
agreed. Or a way to export to word/pdf with redlines between two revisions would be wonderful.
Eric Wightman
Hey Julian Pustkuchen! You can already access document history in Docs! Does this accomplish your goal?
Julian Pustkuchen
Eric Wightman: Thank you very much for your SUPER FAST reply! Whao! :D
Sorry I didn't see that History Button before and even my Google results didn't tell me about that functionality. Please try it yourself, perhaps I didn't pick the right keywords or this could need a documentation page?
Somehow this MIGHT be a UX problem or my stupidness: There are several Three-Dots Menus on the page, which have similar purpose and I'm not sure if they should perhaps be reconsidered:
- Left on each page in the list
- Right on top
- The menu you screenshotted (I didn't recognize it before as it seems, even with your screenshot I first had to search for it :D)
Especially I'm not sure why History is in that menu and not (also) in the other(s). Same for other items.
Intuitively, I looked into the top right menu for example.
But this is just feedback, don't get me wrong - it's my fault, but might be valuable to discuss in your UX team.
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Now I opened the History and it shows "No history yet" while the document was changed a lot. How can that happen and is it documented somewhere when a changes goes into history?
If you'd like to have a look at the document with your team to check, feel free to send me an email for the link.
Thanks a lot! :)
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As I can't yet test the history, does it provide a diff functionality for the detailed changes? Otherwise we should perhaps use this feature request to vote for that?
Eric Wightman
Julian Pustkuchen: I hear you! Glad that helped a little bit. Our team is working on making some awesome changes to Docs in the near future, so most of your concerns should be addressed by that.
In regards to changes made, I believe a "change" happens when a doc is edited by a different person, or every 30 seconds to a minute. So if you make a lot of changes in a little time, it might not count that until the next 30 seconds/minute interval
Julian Pustkuchen
Eric Wightman: Thank you very much Eric! That's great to hear!
I guess then it was a bug yesterday. The list opened, but was completely empty, now it is filled... Hopefully a one-timer ;)
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