Download button offering every prior version

[homeofeconomy]

Hello!  I'm puzzling through what seems to me to be counter-intuitive behavior.

We're using the Downloads module, trying to get it set up with employment forms & whatnot.  In many cases, there is a good reason to keep the old versions accessible with some effort.  But in every case I've seen we only want to offer the most recent version of the file when someone clicks the big "download button".  But the current behavior doesn't match this - instead, every version of the file is presented to the user to choose the one they want to download.

I would greatly prefer that the user not see the old versions unless they click through the version history specifically looking for an older copy.  The settings I've changed so far don't cause this behavior - does anyone have any ideas?

Best regards,

Rob

[Joel R]

You can simply turn off versioning, which will only save the most recent version.  

[homeofeconomy]

I'd like to keep versioning on, if possible, but only present the user with the current version when they hit the download button.  Downloading a prior version (usually for comparison purposes) should require deliberate effort.

[Joel R]

I see, this is currently not possible without customization.  

It was designed to allow users to be able to download old versions, for example, on digital files which could match their version.  

[bfarber]

If you are seeing every prior version when you go to download a file, that means the people who is submitting their new versions are adding the new version file to the existing list of files without removing the old version.

In other words, if I go to submit a new version of a file, on the submission screen I should remove any existing files, and add the new file. Downloads itself will keep track of the previous version, but if you have all versions available in a single "version", then all versions will be presented when you go to download.

[homeofeconomy]

Thank you @bfarber - we caught this with more experimentation and I was coming back to post the same thing.  We can and will train our users to watch out for this.  I wanted to ask - is it intentional that the old file is automatically attached when creating a new version?

[bfarber]

18 hours ago, homeofeconomy said:

 is it intentional that the old file is automatically attached when creating a new version?

Yes. When you submit a "new version" you could just be updating a screenshot for instance, in which case we don't want to force the person to resubmit their existing file. It is up to the person editing the file to determine how the new version should look, including whether or not the same file is still relevant, a new one should be added, or the old one removed and replaced (probably the most common workflow, but not the only one).