Clone & Replace plugin provides you a useful post forking and merging tool. It simply allows you to clone published posts, then edit those clones (as any other draft can be) and finally replace the original posts with your updated post clones. All features can be used both individually and in combined state like a fork and merge model.
How Clone & Replace Plugin Works?
WordPress already allows you create and save posts as drafts. Drafts are the unpublished posts saved by author for further review or scheduling etc. As soon a draft is published, edits cannot follow the same workflow.
Here comes the use of Clone & Replace plugin. It provides you the ability to clone posts and the ability to smoothly replace posts with another. This when combined, allow bloggers to leverage core’s “draft workflow” for published posts.
- You can create clones of existing posts. The replicas are generated as post drafts and have same data including the original post terms and metadata. The only things which are not cloned are child posts which includes post revisions, attachments, and other posts.
- You can replace one post with another. The replaced post becomes a revision of itself, the replacing post is essentially deleted and you’re left with the replacing post’s data with the post ID and slug of the replaced post.
How to Use Clone & Replace Plugin?
Install and activate Clone & Replace plugin. After activation the plugin adds clone links on Dashboard -> Posts -> All Posts page (under each post) and in edit post screen of an individual WordPress post (in publish metabox).
Using these links you can clone any post to a new post draft which is accessible from Dashboard -> Posts -> All Posts (Drafts Tab).
Now on draft edit screen you will be noticing a new ‘ Clone/Replace’ button in publish metabox. Click the button and it will open up a field where you can find a post to replace.
Start typing the post name which you want to replace and then select it from the dropdown suggestions.
Finally, publish the post it will replace the selected post.(The data from this post will get moved to the replaced one. If revisions are enabled, the latest version of replaced post will become a post revision. Otherwise it moves to trash.