Last modified: 2011-06-02 21:40:31 UTC
When writing about or revising templates, comparing former versions is impossible to do without resorting to screen shots at the moment. Much better would be, if we could just transclude different versions side to side so as to be able to see their differences. E.g. putting: {{template#18825}} {{template#18852}} {{template#18995}} (figures represent sample revision numbers) in a page, we could have older existing versions shown underneath each other, and editing progress documented, or the ground laid for a decision, which layout to fnally choose for general use in the future, etc. Of course, the same can apply to any page transclusion, not only templates. The syntax above is not meant to be final or recommended, it is choose only for quick and simple demonstration.
Use of specific versions by local ID number would not survive import/export across sites, making it very unsuitable for general usage. If something like this were considered it would probably need to be pretty explicitly unavailable in content pages.
Indeed; that is why I did not propose a more general identification. The ids being used in permalinks to local pages that have not been hidden are the only ones that (currently) are guaranteed to work. They should luckily already cover a large class of pages that one may want to be able to serve again with their unaltered historic content, even if not with each of their old CSS. If we want something more permanent, being constant across sites and export/import, we need to use something like the message-id's known from e-mail and netnews to identify revisions. Yet that would have to be carefully considered and most likely existing revision numbers converted which I am hesitant to propose.
