The one thing I find most frustrating with WordPress is the inability to limit the number of revisions it stores for each post or page. Possessing a bad habit of composing posts in WordPress and hitting the “save draft” button every few changes, I’m drowning in revisions.
Having multiple copies of each page can really slow down your site’s load time since there are more pages in the database. For example: 20 revisions for each post x 100 = 2000 pages taking up space and preventing the database from being accessed efficiently. Think of the database as a file drawer full of pages. How fast can you find a page in 100 vs. 1900 pages? Even if it is alphabetical it takes more time.
Getting rid of those revisions pages used to require running a script in the database which erases ALL revisions. Having wished there was a way to save 2 revisions and trash the rest, I was thrilled to find a solution.
The Revision Control plugin allows you to set the number of revisions you would like to keep for both posts and pages separately. It is user-friendly and doesn’t require database access, so anyone can use it.
Revision Control Plugin Settings
Based on the number of revisions I have on my posts after the plugin install, I’m going to assume it will implement the limit for future pages and posts and doesn’t clear out the existing ones. Luckily there is a way to delete the ones I already have right from the page’s edit screen.
Options on the edit screen of a post
You can also override the default plugin settings on a page by page basis.
I’m going to test this out on my 3 blogs before adding it to a few client sites. Looks like this is the perfect solution to my “save draft” habit. I know I’m not alone.
Hi Melinda!
While I don’t compose in the WordPress editor, I still need to revise numerous drafts. Your plugin discovery sounds like a winner. I use WP-Optimize, as it was the first one on the list that did what I wanted – zap all those revisions.
I’m also using CloudFlare, which has its own database optimizer. I suppose I can click on either plugin to achieve the same result. (Though I’m not certain that CloudFlare deletes revisions, which is a separate task from optimizing.)
If you’ve ever tried WP-Optimize, do you find Revision Control to be more useful?
Cheers,
Mitch
Mitchell Allen recently posted..I Was a Teen-aged Mutant Emailer
I did try WP Optimize but it crashed one of my sites so I was scared away. I do use it on one site. I couldn’t figure out what the conflict was on the site that crashed as it had all the same plugins running. Strange. I haven’t had time to attempt using it again, and this did what I wanted. I was thinking Optimize wipes them all off just like if you did that in the database manually and I wanted to keep at least one revision, so I thought this was a good solution.
As far as I know, it does zap them all, which is fine with me. I backup the MS Word files
I love it when I ask the right question. I don’t know HOW I knew, but I figured you would have tried it.
Thanks!
Cheers,
Mitch
Mitchell Allen recently posted..The Tribe the Jungle and the Terrifying Idea