Using Timewarp

Timewarp allows authors to quickly view previous versions of pages in AEM sites. To use Timewarp, navigate - to a page in AEM sites. I’ve created a sample page - for this demonstration. Clicking on the page and - selecting the Timewarp view, we see a page version history. Clicking on the preview button opens a version of the page at that time. Here we see the first version of the page before it contained any content.

Heading back to the site and - selecting a later version, we see the original content - was added to this page.

The next version, we - see even more content.

We can also compare previous - versions to the latest version using the compare option. Here, we see additions - highlighted in green, and anything that was removed - is highlighted in red. Let’s take a look at - another feature of Timewarp. For this, let’s edit the Timewarp page. Selecting Timewarp from the mode menu brings up a date selection. When we choose a date, AEM will render the closest page version - that was created prior to the date and time selected. If we set the date to December 12th, AEM will show version 1.1 as this is the closest - version to that date. Changing the date to December 15th, AEM will show us version 1.2 as it is the closest version to that date. Let’s take a look at a few - edge cases to be aware of when using Timewarp. If we select a date way - before our page was created, AEM will render the - current version of the page since there is no page version from that time for it to render.

If we select a date that is - after the last page version was created, AEM will render version 1.2 as it is the closest - version that was created prior to the date and time selected. Instead of the current - version of the page, 1.3. The current version is - not technically stored as a version within AEM, therefore, Timewarp goes back and finds - version 1.2 to display to us. It’s also worth noting that Timewarp works on the QC page tree’s version history. This means it will only show changes to things that are managed - under the QC page node that is being Timewarped. For the next example, let’s - make a change to an asset. If we upload a new image or if an existing image - was cropped or rotated, the changes will appear - in previous versions. This happens because the edit takes place outside of the scope of the page itself. Since the page is only - referencing the image, it is not aware of any - changes made to the image.

It’s important to be - aware when using Timewarp that changes to external reference content may not be reflected in - the Timewarp preview. - -