Public document changelog: show what changed in your library Pro

Councils publishing minutes, clinics revising patient leaflets and schools replacing policies all get asked the same question: what has changed? The public document changelog answers it on a page of your site. It lists your published and updated documents, newest first and grouped by month, and keeps itself current as you work, so there is no separate log to maintain.

It is a Pro feature, available as a shortcode and as a block.

Adding it to a page

Use the shortcode anywhere WordPress renders shortcodes:

[filedeck_changelog]

Or, in the block editor, add the Document Changelog block. It sits in the Widgets category, and searching for "changelog" finds it. The editor shows a preview of the list.

Attributes

Attribute	Default	What it does
category	All documents	One or more category slugs, comma-separated. Only documents in those categories are listed, including documents in their sub-categories.
limit	100	The most documents to list, from 1 to 500.

A changelog for a minutes page, limited to the 50 most recent changes:

[filedeck_changelog category="minutes,agendas" limit="50"]

Block settings

The block’s sidebar has a Changelog settings panel with the same two options:

• Category slugs (comma-separated) — leave it blank for all documents.
• Maximum documents — a slider from 1 to 500.

What each entry shows

Entries sit under month headings, such as "September 2026". Each one has:

• a Published or Updated label;
• the document’s title, linked to its document page;
• the date it last changed, in the date format set under Settings → General.

The date, the month an entry is filed under and the order of the list all come from the document’s last-modified date in WordPress, which moves forward each time the document is saved. A document is labelled Updated when its last-modified date is more than a day after its publish date, and Published otherwise.

What it leaves out

The changelog is built for a public page, so it lists fewer documents than your library does. It leaves out documents that:

• are not published: drafts, documents pending review and scheduled documents;
• have neither an uploaded file nor an external link;
• are past their expiry date;
• have been superseded by a newer document;
• have a visibility setting of their own (logged-in visitors only, the author only, or specific people) or a password — see access control;
• are filed in a category restricted by role or password, or in a client area (named people, a group, an email domain or a membership plan), including when the restriction is set on a parent category.

Restricted documents are removed after the limit is applied, so a changelog can show fewer entries than its limit. When no documents qualify, it shows "No document changes to show yet."

Styling

The changelog uses ordinary classes you can style in your theme:

• fdk-changelog on the wrapper, plus fdk-changelog-empty when no documents qualify;
• fdk-changelog-month on each month heading (an h3), followed by a fdk-changelog-list list;
• fdk-changelog-item on each entry;
• fdk-changelog-tag on the label, with fdk-changelog-tag--publish or fdk-changelog-tag--update.

The date is a <time> element whose datetime attribute carries the full date and time.

FAQ

Does it show what changed inside a document?

No. It shows which documents changed and when. When you replace a document’s file, version history keeps the earlier one.

Does it list deleted documents?

No. It is built from the documents that are published now, so a document you delete, unpublish or let expire drops off the list rather than appearing as a removal.

Can visitors get these changes by email?

Yes, with subscriptions: visitors sign up for an email digest of new and updated documents. See subscriptions and digests.