Sunday, May 24, 2009

Version control in eDocs

An advanced feature of eDocs is called "versioning", which allows users to track edits to a file. If versioning is enabled for a particular file, it is saved as a new version with a new filename each time that it is revised. Individual versions can be opened, edited, deleted, etc. Versioning also allows a user to "check-out" a file, edit it, and then subsequently "check-in" the revised file; while the file is checked-out, no other users can access the file, which prevents other collaborators from editing the file at the same time. These features of eDocs are extremely helpful for collaboration: each new revision is saved, creating a history of the revision process, and multiple collaborators can be assured that only one of them is editing the file at any given time.

The title of this blog posting is a link to a short video illustrating the versioning and check-out/check-in processes within eDocs; this video was created using the free Jing software.

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