PublishPress Revisions 3 is Available With a New Workflow

PublishPress Revisions is the plugin that allows you to safely make changes to WordPress posts.

You can edit a post and submit those changes for feedback and approval, before it goes live on your site. It's also possible to schedule those changes to go live on a future date.

All of these features make PublishPress Revisions a popular choice for WordPress publishers.

However, to realize the full potential of PublishPress Revisions, we've made some big updates to how the plugin works.

After many months of work, and many rounds of feedback from PublishPress customers (thank you all!), we've released version 3 of PublishPress Revisions.

In this post, I'll explain how the PublishPress Revisions plugin worked previously, why we're making changes, and how it works now.

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The old workflow with PublishPress Revisions 2

In the previous version of the plugin, the workflow looked like this:

1. Edit an existing post (using the normal Edit link).
2. Make your changes.
3. Save the revision.
4. Go to the “Revision Queue” to view and approve the changes.

This workflow meant that you used the “Save Revision” button and “Pending Revision” checkbox that you can see in the image below.

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What was limiting with the old workflow?

Revisions 2 hooked into the WordPress post update process to save changes as a new revision, then interrupted the update to leave the original post unchanged. Revisions were saved with a custom post status that relied on extra code to make them editable. Each of these mechanisms were easily thrown off by third party code. There were three key problems with the old model that limited the improvements we could make. By resolving these structural issues, Revisions 3 opens the door to plugin compatibility and features that just weren't possible with earlier versions.

1. Custom fields. Plugins and themes that define their own custom fields sometimes also apply updates to those fields in a non-standard way. This meant custom integration code was needed to ensure any custom field updates were saved to the revision, not the original post. 
   
2. Page-builder integrations. Hooking into the WordPress post update process also meant that custom front end editing solutions were incompatible by default. We had to build complex custom integrations for Elementor, Beaver Builder, Divi and others. This became increasingly difficult to maintain. Revisions 3 still has custom integrations for those page builders, but they are simpler and more standardized. Other page builders and custom editing solutions are more likely to be at least partially functional out of the box, and issues easier to resolve.
   
3. An approval process for revisions. We heard from a wide range of customers that they wanted revisions to go through an approval process they use. With the previous Revisions plugin, there was a way to save a revision without submitting it. After submission, everything was either approved or rejected. We now provide an “Unsubmitted Revision” status, and future releases will allow you to define additional revision statuses for the approval sequence. The statuses won't cause compatibility issues because WordPress and other plugins will still see them as a familiar ‘draft', ‘pending' or ‘future' status.

There are more upgrades inside Revisions 3, and we have extra plans for the future. But these are the main reasons why we've invested so much time and energy into this new release.

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The new workflow with PublishPress Revisions 3

When you use Revisions 3, the process of copying a post and making changes looks like this:

1. Click “New Revision”, which directs the Editor to an unmodified copy of the original post.
2. Make your changes.
3. Save the revision.
4. Go to the “Revision Queue” to view and approve the changes.

The image below shows how you start the new workflow. Instead of following the normal Edit link to make changes, you click “New Revision”:

You will now be given a copy of the post. You can see the key action buttons in the screenshot below:

• “Update Revision” will save the changes you're working on.
• “Submit Revision” will mark your changes as ready for approval.

Once you have submitted your changes for approval, the revision will appear on the “Revision Queue” screen.

Any user who has the capability to approve revisions can now preview your changes. They will see the bar in the image below on the top of the site. They can click any of these buttons:

• List: Go to the Revision Queue.
• Compare: See the changes between this version and the active version of the post.
• View Published Post: See the active version of the post.
• Edit: Make modifications to this revision.
• Publish now: Approve the revision and make it live.

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Over to you for feedback

We know it will be a noticeable change for many users, and we'd love to hear your feedback.

If you have a suggestion for improving Revisions, please leave it in the comments below or open a support ticket. You're also welcome to open a support ticket on Github.