Some questions about Versioning-1515778253

Hey all,

I had a few quick (hopefully simple) questions about DocuWare versioning (when turned on for a file cabinet).

1. How efficient is storage for versions? As in, if I have a large document and make one small change, are the versions stored as differential layers as opposed to the whole file being saved multiple times? In other words, is it a bad idea to turn on versioning if the file cabinet is expected to house very large files with lots of changes? EDIT: Did some research on my server and all versions are the full file at the time, both in the database and in the file storage location. So versioning can definitely eat through disk space in a hurry.
2. Is there any sort of "diff" utility to compare versions? Not sure how that would work since most documents are binary, but if I stored, say, text documents, is there a way to "diff" the versions without downloading them and using a diff tool?
3. Is the only visible web client change related to versioning the "Hide/Show old versions" button in the result list toolbar? Is there any other way to cycle through older versions beside displaying all versions and finding the one you want in the result list (e.g. a navigation tool I am not seeing in the viewer that can cycle through)? I see that Result Lists and Search Dialogs can include the version-related fields, so that is nice.
4. Is there a way to make the "Hide/Show old versions" setting remain persistent? I see that every time I do a search it starts in the "hidden" position. If we wanted to always see all versions, it seems like a pain to always have to toggle that button.

We might want to use versioning on some future DW endeavors, and I just want to have as much practical knowledge about them as I can.

Thanks,

Joe Kaufman

Hi Joe,

I tried to answer your questions below in italic.

1. How efficient is storage for versions? As in, if I have a large document and make one small change, are the versions stored as differential layers as opposed to the whole file being saved multiple times? In other words, is it a bad idea to turn on versioning if the file cabinet is expected to house very large files with lots of changes? EDIT: Did some research on my server and all versions are the full file at the time, both in the database and in the file storage location. So versioning can definitely eat through disk space in a hurry.
   You are right, we store them as individual files.
2. Is there any sort of "diff" utility to compare versions? Not sure how that would work since most documents are binary, but if I stored, say, text documents, is there a way to "diff" the versions without downloading them and using a diff tool?
   Currently there is no "diff" possible between different versions
3. Is the only visible web client change related to versioning the "Hide/Show old versions" button in the result list toolbar? Is there any other way to cycle through older versions beside displaying all versions and finding the one you want in the result list (e.g. a navigation tool I am not seeing in the viewer that can cycle through)? I see that Result Lists and Search Dialogs can include the version-related fields, so that is nice.
   Additionally you have the functionality to show all versions in an additional result list. Therefore you use the context menu in the result list and use "Open document history". All versions up to the current one will then be displayed in one list. You should use this list when working with versions. 
4. Is there a way to make the "Hide/Show old versions" setting remain persistent? I see that every time I do a search it starts in the "hidden" position. If we wanted to always see all versions, it seems like a pain to always have to toggle that button.
   There is no possibility to change the default status. 

Tobias,

Thanks for the response!

1. Yes, we will just have to be careful when deciding to use versioning with regard to storage.
2. OK.
3. Ah, thanks for pointing out that right-click menu option. Handy.
4. That is unfortunate. Not sure why DocuWare would want to make working with versions just that much more difficult by not persisting settings related to it. Other settings (like sorting) are preserved, so I wonder why this isn't?

Thanks again!

Joe Kaufman

Joe,

I understand your concern about not persisting this setting. Actually displaying the old versions in the same list as the current version was a workaround for not having this version overview mentioned in 3. This (newer) view of all versions for one document is much easier to understand and to use. In a future version we will probably only show the current version in the result list and the previous versions only in this separate view.