One of the most requested features over the last few months has been a way for users to filter particular folders from their website backup. We are excited to announce that filtering is now available for initial backup activations! How does it work? Oddly enough, there is more complexity than one might imagine.
Remember the first time you saw Back to the Future? I realize I’m dating and nationalizing myself here, as many of you probably have never heard of Back to the Future. The premise of the movie isn’t that novel: utilizing a special device, in this case a car, Marty McFly (what a name, right?), transports himself back in time. Actions he takes there impact the future that he hopes to return to.
When filtering is configured for the first time, you establish the boundaries for the life of your backup*. Let’s say that you exclude the cache, logs, and stats folders because you don’t value backing up the contents. CodeGuard will record your utter disdain for those folders, and should you add any children folders or content to them, we will ignore that new content. If two years from now you want to review what has happened to an excluded folder, we won’t be able to help you. The initial backup sets the limits of the world you can return to in your personal Back to the Future movie.
Changes may occur in the folders you exclude at some point in the future. But these changes will be dead to us. They are part of an alternate reality that Marty cannot return to. Or, perhaps, they are visible aspects of Marty’s world, but for some reason, he cannot change them. This analogy may be falling completely apart at this point.
Here is a screenshot of how filtering could look if you wanted to manually configure your WordPress site. Once you uncheck “cache”, if any folders are *ever* added to cache, they will not be backed up. Additional folders added to wp-content, however, will be backed up, since the parent folder is selected.
If you have familiarity with file structures and hierarchy, the concept probably makes perfect sense. If you don’t, a little research into parent & children directory or folder relationships will go a long way.
For users with large sites who have been asking for filtering – now you have it! Add your previously “too large” sites!!! And for users with enormous sites who don’t want all of that content – add your site again, or wait for our folder exclusion release – which should be here by Q4 2012.
-David
