Introducing Smart Content Auto-Merging
Scrivito working copies are virtual copies of the entire website and a feature that allows editors to change content safely in a sandbox. A working copy lets you change or add as much content as you want or need to, and publish everything at the push of a button. Sometimes, it’s just a single typo on a page; at other times, dozens of pages are touched, images uploaded, etc., before a working copy finally gets published. For editors, the ability to work in parallel without getting into each other’s way is a blessing.In general, it’s best to publish as soon as content changes are ready. In a working copy, intermediate publishes are automatically applied, so that all working copies reflect the currently published content. We call this auto-merging. However, for natural reasons, there is an exception: the pages and assets that have been altered in your working copy are not updated automatically when concurrent edits to the same pages or assets are published. What are concurrent edits? Did you ever run into a situation in which you weren’t able to publish a working copy because of conflicting changes? This happens if someone alters a page and publishes their working copy while you are working on exactly the same page in a different working copy. It doesn’t happen often, not least because Scrivito has a warning indicator that brings actual or potential conflicts to the editors’ attention. Auto-merging used to operate on a page level, meaning that no matter what two people had altered on the same page, it caused a conflict after publishing one of the two working copies. We felt that this behavior was worth improving. Instant content updates through finer grained auto-merging We improved the way Scrivito detects concurrent editing by no longer looking at pages as a whole but at their components: widgets, the page title, or the page description in the properties, etc.So, for example, if you change some text in a widget, and one of your team exchanges an image on the same page in a different working copy, the changes are silently merged and become visible after any of the two working copies is published. Previously, this would have been a conflict that would have prevented publishing the second working copy.The same applies if, for example, one editor exchanges the image of an image widget, while another one changes the caption of the same image widget on the same page, but in a different working copy. There wouldn’t be a conflict even if both editors published. However, if they both exchange the image or alter the caption of the same image widget, they will receive a conflict warning, and only one of the two working copies could be published.Note that concurrently rearranging the widgets contained in a widget list also doesn’t produce a conflict anymore. Scrivito will always try to find the optimal position of a widget that has been shifted around in two working copies. Final note Auto-merging is not part of the Scrivito SDK but of the Scrivito CMS service, so there’s no need to update your app to benefit from this feature!Happy publishing! Do you have any questions or would like to share your thoughts or give feedback? You’re welcome!
More great blog posts from Andreas Viebke
Scrivito JS SDK 1.5.0 RC 1 Is Available
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It used to be... It used to be that a large part of releasing changes to a professional website required a long list of steps to ensure secure propagation of changes through the development cycle into production.Each part needed to be kept in sync with the next, or the whole flow would break. The...
Scrivito Rails SDK 1.15.0 Has Been Released
Improvements Changes dialog displays last editor On the changes dialog of a working copy, the individual items now include the name of the user who most recently edited them. So, should questions arise regarding the changes made to a page (for example when publishing), instead of navigating to...
Scrivito JS SDK 1.4.0 Is Available
Editing interface improvements Changes dialog displays last editor On the changes dialog of a working copy, the individual items now include the name of the user who most recently edited them. So, should questions arise regarding the changes made to a page (for example when publishing), instead...
Scrivito JS SDK 1.3.0 Is Available
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Scrivito Rails SDK 1.14.0 Has Been Released
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Scrivito JS SDK 1.2.0 Is Available
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Collaborating Real-Time with Scrivito
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Scrivito Rails SDK 1.13.0 Has Been Released
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Scrivito 1.11.0 Release Notes
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Scrivito 1.10.0 Release Notes
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Scrivito 1.9.1 Release Notes
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Scrivito 1.9.0 Release Notes
Unified changes view modes When working on a page, Scrivito lets you compare the current page contents with the version you started off with. Up to now, the changes view that lets you do this had three modes, “Additions,” “Deletions,” and “All changes” of which – according to the feedback we...
Scrivito 1.8.1 Release Notes
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Scrivito 1.8.0 Release Notes
Improvements Content Browser The Content Browser is significantly faster now because it loads much more data in parallel. Just watch the main area while image thumbnails are being displayed! Also, the multi-selection mode is now directly accessible in the user interface. It lets you select...
Scrivito 1.7.0 Release Notes
Improvements Rails 5.0 support This release of Scrivito adds support for Rails 5.0 to the SDK. Rails 5.0 was released this summer and includes numerous speed improvements, refactorings and new features (see the Rails 5.0 overview for details).Scrivito continues to support Rails 4.2, so in case...
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Scrivito 1.6.0 Release Notes
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Scrivito 1.5.3 Release Notes
Bugfixes This is a bugfix release that addresses an issue with <script> tags contained in html attributes that are edited in place: In Scrivito 1.5.0, we reimplemented how values are stored while content is edited in place. During this reimplementation, we also reworked the part that handles...
Scrivito 1.5.2 Release Notes
Bugfixes This is another bugfix release. It fixes a minor issue regarding in-place editing: Scrivito's in-place editing interface now again stores HTML tags with missing attributes, e.g. <a>Link</a> or <img>. We're sorry for the inconvenience this bug might have caused. Please update your...
Scrivito 1.5.1 Release Notes
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Scrivito 1.5.0 Release Notes
Improvements Specifying link targets Editors now have access to the target property of link and linklist fields, making it possible to specify whether a link should be opened in a new window. Note that your app needs to render this property for it to have an effect: link_to(link.display_title...
Scrivito 1.4.2 Release Notes
Bugfixes No, you didn't miss the release of 1.4.1, but we had to skip this version for technical reasons. This release fixes a couple of bugs that were introduced in version 1.4.0 of the Scrivito SDK: You can now drag and drop files to the Content Browser again. Also, it is now possible again to...
Scrivito 1.4.0 Release Notes
Improvements Introducing the publishing history We are proud to present Scrivito's new publishing history to you! It gives you full control of what has been published in the recent past. No matter, whether you're just curious regarding the progress your site content made, or whether you need to...
Scrivito 1.3.1 Release Notes
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Scrivito 1.3.0 Release Notes
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Scrivito 1.2.0 Release Notes
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Scrivito 1.1.1 Release Notes
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Scrivito 1.1.0 Release Notes
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