Ideas about Gravity Forms historical changelog / release notes

Update: The change_log.txt file contained in each package has the entire history in one place. A whole lot of my bluster for nothing. Thank you, @chrishajer!

Hello, all! Loving the new forums.

This request/question has been asked many times before, but I thought I’d add to the stack. And I’m hoping the community might be able to brainstorm solutions!

We need a central place to review the full history of Gravity Forms change logs from release to release. Any time I am updating our university WordPress multisite installation (around 300 blogs and counting), I need to compare/audit all the of the changes for compatibility and user communication. That way there are no surprises, for me or the users. Being able to look at a list of changes for every version between my current one and the latest one is a big part of this.

A cursory review of a couple of times this need has been expressed (e.g., 1, 2) shows that this information is in a number of places, but none of them provide a fully useful or manageable solution.

  • change_log.txt: The change_log.txt file in each downloaded package is great, and contains all the information I need. but is only for that version. However, there isn’t a published place to download older versions of Gravity Forms—only the most recent one. If I skip a version I have no easy way to get that change_log.txt file between my current version and the latest.
  • The Blog: The blog release posts are fantastic, and if I use Google Search-fu, I can get a lot of the information I need. But not always—there doesn’t seem to be a 1:1 ratio between releases and blog posts (which is understandable).
  • The Script: There is a changelog.php script that’s part of the gravityhelp site, but it only presents the latest change_log.txt file.

Ideas?

Here are some ideas I have. If anyone knows of better or current solutions, please help!

  1. change_log.txt: If we don’t want to publish an archive of all the past versions of Gravity Forms packages for download, could we perhaps just publish all the past change_log.txt files by version in a central place?
  2. The Blog: Could we use Categories or Tags on the blog posts, classifying each of the Release posts in some way so one could look at all of the release-related posts in a single, sortable view?
  3. The Script: Perhaps combined with idea #1, could the changelog.php script access a version number parameter and dynamically pull up a desired change_log.txt file?

I’ve been an early adopter/promoter of Gravity Forms for a long, long time. It’s one of my favorite and one of our most-used plugins, and we try and support our users as much as possible. Anything that makes that easier would be a huge boon to us.

Thanks for your effort and time, and Happy New Year!

daniel spillers

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The change_log.txt that is distributed with the software contains all the changes going back to the beginning (not just the latest changes in that release). Is there a reason that does not work for you?

The change_log.txt that is included with the software contains all the changes going back to the beginning (with release numbers), not just the latest changes. Is there a reason that won’t work for you?

Well heck, this is why I ask questions. I was basing my question, honestly, off previous answers I linked to and the output of the changelog.php instead of opening up that file.

Thank you for pointing me to the right place.

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Update May 8, 2019:

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