Scheduling and revisions
Whether and when an article is on the site is decided by two fields in the Publishing panel: Status and Publish date.
Article statuses
| Status | What it means | Who can set it |
|---|---|---|
| Draft – in progress | the article is being worked on; only the editorial team sees it | everyone |
| For review – done, please check | the author is done and hands the article over for checking | everyone |
| Approved – waiting to be published | checked; it only remains to publish it | whoever may publish |
| Published | the article is on the site, or will appear there at the given time | whoever may publish |
An author without the right to publish has only the first two options in the menu. Who has the right to publish is explained on the page Roles and permissions; how the editorial team hands an article over is described in Handover and review.
In the article list the statuses correspond to the tabs All, Published, Scheduled, Drafts, For review and Approved.
Scheduled publishing
- Set the Status to Published.
- Enter a date and time in the future into the Publish date field.
- Save.
The article has the mark scheduled in the list, and you find it in the Scheduled tab and in the editorial calendar. It appears on the site by itself at the given time. Until then nobody sees it except the signed-in editorial team (with the Preview button).
The publish date follows the time zone of the site. An administrator sets it in Settings → General → Time zone; the hint next to the field shows what time it is right now according to it.
The Publish button, which whoever may publish sees next to an unpublished article in the list, does the same as the Published status: if the publish date is in the future, the article is scheduled; otherwise it is published immediately.
The role of background jobs
A scheduled article is displayed at the given time without any further setup. Publishing is, however, followed by work done by background jobs: refreshing the cached pages, so that the article also appears on the home page, and sending out notifications. By default the jobs are run during visits to the site. On a site that nobody visits at night, a morning article may therefore be delayed. Cron ensures the exact time – the procedure is on the page Background jobs.
Removing from the home page
The field Remove from the home page on in the More settings panel is optional. After the given date the article disappears from the home page; it stays in its section and in search.
Updated
For a published article the Publishing panel has the option Mark as updated (readers see “Updated” with today's date). Tick it when you add substantial new information to the article, and save. Above the text the reader sees Updated with the date and time.
The option applies to one save. When you fix a typo, leave it empty – the update date does not change.
Revisions
Whenever you save an article with a changed headline, standfirst or text, the previous wording is saved as a version. The last 20 versions are kept. Changes to other fields (section, tags, date) do not create a version.
You find the versions at the bottom of the settings column in the Version history panel. Each one has a date, the name of the person who saved the change and a what changed link.
Comparing versions
The what changed link opens the Compare versions screen. It shows the difference between the chosen version and the current wording separately for the headline, standfirst and text; added and deleted text is distinguished by colour, and their totals are at the top. Changes to formatting and images are not compared.
Restoring an older version
- In Version history click the date of a version, or click Load this version into the editor in the comparison.
- The older wording is loaded into the editor. A notice at the top says that it takes effect only after saving.
- Check the text and click Save. The current wording is saved by itself as another version, so you can return to it.
If you change your mind about the restore, simply leave the form without saving.
Editing right on the site
A signed-in user who may edit an article sees an Edit here link on its page on the site.
- Click Edit here. Instead of the article, an editor with the fields Title, Lead and Text opens in the site template.
- Edit the text and click Save. You return to the article page. Cancel returns without any change.
The same rules apply as in the administration: a published article may be changed only by someone with the right to publish, the previous wording is saved as a version, and the article is locked while being edited. If a colleague has it open right now, their name is displayed and the editor does not open.
Other settings (section, tags, date) cannot be changed this way – the link All settings in the administration leads to them.
Site pages (Content → Pages) work the same way: the Edit here link is seen by whoever has access to the Pages area, and the title and text are edited. Pages do not have a version history.