Brackets Persistent History

Extension that saves editing history between changing projects or while Brackets is closed.

Created to supplement this Trello card (Local history versioning).

Note

This extension is still under work, but the basics should work. Help by filing issues, figuring out edge cases and suggesting new features!

How does it work?

Saving history

When a file has been edited (so that it's CodeMirror history has been modified) and user saves the current file following happens:

• the actual history is saved to state.json (key is the full path)
• a cached version the file is saved to modules/cache (as first-10-letters-of-path-converted-to-sha-1.tmp)

Loading history

When user opens a file, the extension checks first checks if the cache folder contains a cached copy of the file and the diff's it against the current document using JsDiff. This step is important, as CodeMirror history works line/character basis, which makes any changes to the document invalidate the entire history.

Regardless of whether the cached version differs from the original, the extension proceeds to reinserting the history. However, if the document was modified, the extension first reverts the document to the cached version, applies the history and then returns the document to original state. This way the redo history get invalidated, but undo history works as intended:

current document → cached document → history

Preferences

Following configuration options are available (under petetnt.brackets-persistent-history):

persistHistory (Boolean)

Default: true - Enables or disables persistent history

cacheTimeToLiveInDays (Integer)

Default: 14 - How many days should the cache (=== editing history + files) live. Note that working with many large files might bloat the size of the cache very quickly, so modify accordingly.

TODO

• Create unit tests

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Just open a new issue and/or send a pull request.

License

MIT