# "Hacky" Version Control Workaround **URL:** \ **Category:** Share Code and Components\ **Created:** [October 29, 2021, 8:44pm UTC](https://community.sitejet.io/t/hacky-version-control-workaround/1188 "2021-10-29T20:44:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![zachary](https://dub1.discourse-cdn.com/flex017/user_avatar/community.sitejet.io/zachary/32/26_2.png) [@zachary](https://community.sitejet.io/u/zachary)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2021, 8:44pm UTC](https://community.sitejet.io/t/hacky-version-control-workaround/1188/1 "2021-10-29T20:44:57Z")
**Hey SiteJetters!** ⚠Tired of clients asking to “put that thing back we had 5 months ago”? Meeee too. I wanted to share a strategy I use for my own **version control" in SiteJet.** Getting in the habit of doing this will help you in the long run and save you tons of time and headaches. ❌ **The Problem** : **Clients, or you, want to reinstate content from a long time ago.** For example, they may go through months of feedback after deleting an element in feedback prior. You designed a certain few elements, and they struck them and went with another. Then, their CEO gives feedback and says he wants it the first way. **Without a mini-version control, you’ll have to spend all that time redesigning the component you made.** Maybe it’s easy, maybe it’s hard - but it’s still wasting your time. ✅ **Solution** : - At the beginning of every project, create a page called “Dev” - Check No-index to keep it hidden from search engines - Uncheck the menu navigation checkbox (irrelevant if you use non-autogenerated menus) - Set a password (so if anyone accidentally lands on it, they get the password page instead) - **Use this page** as a holding tank for all “scrapped” elements from the site during development. - Simply cut/paste components/elements you would have deleted otherwise to the Dev Page - Use containers with default width and padding to easily section off different components visually - Just paste your component in a new, distinct container - Alternate subtle different background colors (i.e. #fff and #eee) of the containers to help visually identify the breaks of components stored on the page - Use headlines/text in each container, above the pasted component, to identify pages, context and reason for the element being scrapped (this makes it easier to remember later) - **If youre scrapping presets** : Make sure to change the preset class of the scrapped preset component to something like …preset-[my-preset-class- **scrapped**] or something like that. This ensures you don’t accidentally adjust that preset whilst editing a new one, or vice versa. If you reinstate that component later, simply create a new preset class, and open the CSS to delete the old preset instance. This keeps your CSS clean from unused code. ⚠ By doing this, I have saved so many headaches of “can you put that first thing back” when the “First thing” was designed and scrapped weeks/months ago. You can keep the Dev Page during deployment if you like - I usually leave it for a while until I know the components are fully replaced and confirmed, then clean it out for posterity. This may not be the best practice, but I hope it helps someone! Does anyone else have ideas for this topic? Cheers! -Zach, Hybrid Designer/Developer from [VMD](https://www.virtualmarketingdirectors.com) ---
**Author:** ![Martin.Sitejet.Team](https://dub1.discourse-cdn.com/flex017/user_avatar/community.sitejet.io/martin.sitejet.team/32/25_2.png) [@Martin.Sitejet.Team](https://community.sitejet.io/u/Martin.Sitejet.Team)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2021, 9:03pm UTC](https://community.sitejet.io/t/hacky-version-control-workaround/1188/2 "2021-10-29T21:03:56Z")
@zachary 😍 thank you for sharing this with the community. The next beer is on me! ---
**Author:** ![Mark\_Fosseprez](https://dub1.discourse-cdn.com/flex017/user_avatar/community.sitejet.io/mark_fosseprez/32/58_2.png) [@Mark\_Fosseprez](https://community.sitejet.io/u/Mark_Fosseprez)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2021, 7:07am UTC](https://community.sitejet.io/t/hacky-version-control-workaround/1188/3 "2021-10-30T07:07:47Z")
Thanks for the tip Zach - very useful indeed! kind regards Mark PS I join Martin: 🍻 ---
**Author:** ![Imre\_Fekete](https://dub1.discourse-cdn.com/flex017/user_avatar/community.sitejet.io/imre_fekete/32/27_2.png) [@Imre\_Fekete](https://community.sitejet.io/u/Imre_Fekete)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2021, 10:40am UTC](https://community.sitejet.io/t/hacky-version-control-workaround/1188/4 "2021-10-31T10:40:59Z")
Yeah, I have also a storage page in many projects for the same reason. And if you heavily redesign a project just make it a template or clone the project before, so you can go back to the original one easily. Thanks, Zack for sharing this clever hack with the community:) ---
**Author:** ![Andre](https://dub1.discourse-cdn.com/flex017/user_avatar/community.sitejet.io/andre/32/3459_2.png) [@Andre](https://community.sitejet.io/u/Andre)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2021, 3:45pm UTC](https://community.sitejet.io/t/hacky-version-control-workaround/1188/5 "2021-11-02T15:45:34Z")
That is just beautiful @zachary! 🙏❤ Thank you so much for that input and the time you took to write it down! This is me at a bar, waving to you: ![image](https://europe1.discourse-cdn.com/flex017/uploads/sitejet/original/1X/374a24d26939f2c0c538169aab9ad976b36790fa.jpeg) ---
**Author:** ![Barbara\_Bichler](https://dub1.discourse-cdn.com/flex017/user_avatar/community.sitejet.io/barbara_bichler/32/3745_2.png) [@Barbara\_Bichler](https://community.sitejet.io/u/Barbara_Bichler)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2022, 9:51pm UTC](https://community.sitejet.io/t/hacky-version-control-workaround/1188/6 "2022-03-28T21:51:28Z")
I do it pretty much the same way. Probably not that well organized;-) And yes, it saves a lot of time and effort.