Key Points

1. 90% of Confluence Cloud users prefer the old editor
2. 90% of Confluence Cloud content is built with the old editor
3. Confluence Product Management ignores support for the old editor when making breaking changes in the Cloud product
4. Work arounds are limited

References

I'll run thru a short, standard demo for 15 minutes

1. Let's video and post it as a reference
2. Many ways to organize content
3. Why do I use Confluence ?  a cloud-based Knowledge Base - a "brain extension" for myself or my team -( 300% skills increase in 18 months )
4. Goal >> faster access and application of key information across teams and logical work spaces
5. Don't look at my pages as a full representation of what can be done
6. Many others spend much more time than I do creating great knowledge bases and documentation sites

Confluence Demo

1. Help and Ask the Community - ( I set a record )
2. Admin Tools
3. Spaces - separate users and pages logically
4. Users - registered, anonymous
5. Space permissions - basic roles in a space are:  admin, editor, viewer
6. Space Page Templates - view default set, copy and edit one as needed or create your own
7. Blueprint Templates - add dynamic XML content to a web page - ( not as simple as other wikis = JSPWiki ) - Blueprint Developer Guide
8. Import, export pages from spaces
9. Pages and parents - create, delete, move, copy, archiive
10. Pages - view, edit, star, watch, share
11. Page headings, Table of Contents, anchor links, comments
12. Tags - improve search, create custom content menus
13. Searches - full text and tags
14. Editor - ( WYSIWYG almost ) -- lists, indentations and more  ( choice of New or Old version )
15. Links to any resources in wiki or other resources
16. Files - Documents, Images & Videos ( via url, attachments via upload or embedded via Google connector )
17. Tables - for content and layout
18. Controls - MANY - collapsible code block w syntax checker
19. Plugin apps usually have custom controls to add to a page
20. Team Calendar plugin - works well enough for most needs
21. Google Drive and Google Docs integration - great for teams doing RFCs, whitepapers, design docs etc that require frequent edits, changes
22. m Hyperledger Fabric Solution Concepts
23. https://marketplace.atlassian.com/apps/1213092/google-drive-for-confluence-official?hosting=cloud&tab=overview
24. https://support.atlassian.com/confluence-cloud/docs/insert-the-google-drive-macro/#GoogleDrivemacros-install
25. Drawing tools integration - draw.io, Lucidchart

Navigation Tips 

move from page area to sidebar area for navigation

-------------------------------
Confluence side bar navigation

in a page > down arrow + tab
<< goes to popup to pick a pane
> select side bar
> tab or scroll up or down

Jim's What's missing list?

Worked with many other wikis  ( SharePoint, Alfresco, JSPWiki, Liferay, Domino, Node.js embedded wikis )

More configurable searches

Groovy plugin

Groovy plugin for cloud exists ( Scriptrunner ) > call into Confluence, generating Content pages ( free for 10 user license )

https://skywebteam.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/KHUB/pages/486932561/t+Test+Confluence+plugins

SQL Query plugin

SQL Forms plugin

Portlets with iFrames

Image Maps

Custom Events

API to embed Confluence as a portlet

https://www.npmjs.com/package/confluence-api

API to add portlets to Confluence in iFrames

API to add event services to Confluence ( AI, stat libs, BIRT .. more  )

Confluence Features Summary Presentation

Jim Mason

https://www.atlassian.com/software/confluence

Confluence is a Web collaboration software program created by Atlassian.

Confluence has 2 versions:

1. Confluence Server
   1. a server version a client licenses, installs and maintains
   2. offers more features and more control over updates, potentially lower runtime issues
2. Confluence Cloud
   1. a subscription service with different subscription options

This overview is limited to the Cloud version

Confluence Web CMS concepts

Registered users can add, edit and delete pages

Anonymousers can only view pages

Sample Confluence Web page

The pencil icon in the upper right allows a registered user with permission to edit the page or create a new one.

The sample page below uses a Table of Contents macro control to generate a table of contents automatically from headings in content ( similar to Word docs )

Admin Page showing Spaces and default permissions by role

Spaces are a way to segregate content. You can import and export pages between spaces if needed.

Confluence Page Designer Options

Confluence Page Features

This is a list of features available that can be added or used on Confluence pages

1. Help and Ask the Community - ( I set a record )
2. Admin Tools   
3. Spaces - separate users and pages logically
4. Users - registered, anonymous
5. Space permissions - basic roles in a space are:  admin, editor, viewer
6. Space Page Templates - view default set, copy and edit one as needed or create your own
7. Blueprint Templates - add dynamic XML content to a web page - ( not as simple as other wikis = JSPWiki ) - Blueprint Developer Guide
8. Import, export pages from spaces
9. Pages and parents - create, delete, move, copy, archiive
10. Pages - view, edit, star, watch, share
11. Page headings, Table of Contents, anchor links, comments
12. Tags - improve search, create custom content menus
13. Searches - full text and tags
14. Editor - ( WYSIWYG almost ) -- lists, indentations and more  ( choice of New or Old version )
    1. CTL + F  to find text strings in a page
    2. use the search glass to find and replace text strings in a page
       
15. Links to any resources in wiki or other external resources by URL
16. Files - Documents, Images & Videos ( via url, attachments via upload or embedded via Google connector )
17. Tables - for content and layout
18. Controls - MANY - collapsible code block w syntax checker
19. Plugin apps usually have custom controls to add to a page
20. Team Calendar plugin - works well enough for most needs but is a billable plugin
21. Google Drive and Google Docs integration - great for teams doing RFCs, whitepapers, design docs etc that require frequent edits, changes ( see m Hyperledger Fabric Solution Concepts )
22. https://marketplace.atlassian.com/apps/1213092/google-drive-for-confluence-official?hosting=cloud&tab=overview
23. https://support.atlassian.com/confluence-cloud/docs/insert-the-google-drive-macro/#GoogleDrivemacros-install
24. Drawing tools integration - draw.io, Lucidchart

Confluence App Plugins

Confluence has many application plugins available that add new controls and features to Confluence pages.

Many are billable but there are some excellent free plugins that are very useful.

The Manage apps screen has "Find New Apps" link to search for more app plugins. It is available for an admin to searh and load app plugins.

User installed apps now

Confluence Google Docs integration plugin

Google Docs has provided a free plugin that supports integration of Google Drive and the GSuite applications ( Google Docs, Slides, Sheets etc ).

You can present documents easily from Google drive within a Confluence page. Here's an example of a slide show in a Confluence Web page below.

While directly editing docs from Google drive is easy in a Web browser, IF you want to edit the document in the Confluence page you can do that directly as well.

Google Slides in a Confluence page  ( Note you can EDIT in Confluence as well )

Google Sheet can be directly edited in Confluence page

Confluence Global Templates

Confluence pages have 2 Editors - Old and New

Atlassian has been working on the new editor for 3 years.

The new editor has undergone significant revisions to make it useful.

The old editor used a plugin editor ( Tinymce ) that is a widely used Web page editor for wikis.

By default, all pages have the new editor.

To use the old editor, you need to import pages from ANOTHER space that still have the old editor

Editing a Table in the New Editor

To add a row to a table, you have to hover carefully over the plus sign and click to open up the next row

Editing a Table in the Old Editor

To add a row to a table, you just click the add row icon on the editor menu bar. Very fast to add or delete many rows.

Confluence Admin - manage backup, recovery of Confluence content ****

https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Confluence-Cloud-Admins-articles/How-do-I-recover-my-Confluence-data-if-the-content-is-deleted/ba-p/2253707?utm_source=atlcomm&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=&utm_content=post

As outlined here, there is a division of responsibility between Atlassian, and the customer, when it comes to data management and recovery. Atlassian operates a comprehensive backup program at Atlassian, however, these backups are not available to revert customer-initiated destructive changes, such as fields overwritten using scripts, or deleted issues, projects, or sites.

At Atlassian, we have Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Plans in place that are reviewed annually by the Business Continuity / Disaster Recovery steering committee. The details of these practices are found in our Trust pages Security and Data Management. A

Additionally, we are SOC 2 compliant, and we are audited frequently by a third-party CPA auditor, these reports can be found here, which means we apply strict rules around how we handle your data on our systems.

When it comes to data on your site and recovering from user-caused data loss we provide you with mitigation tools:

1. Archiving Spaces and pages so that users do not have to delete content and admins can recover old data if needed.
2. Page versioning allows you to revert a page back to a previous version.
3. A Trash space where deleted pages are saved and can be restored.

If, however, a space or site is deleted you can recover data by:

• Running periodic manual site backups from which you can do restore.
• Use add-ons like Pro Backup for Confluence which is available through the Atlassian Marketplace and allows you to set up automated backups and save the backup files to a google drive repository. In the app, you are able to get a snapshot of the pages in each space and restore them or look at the content. Please note that it does not allow you to migrate or duplicate data into a different site but rather restore or view content.

Confluence Development Options

Development is easier with Confluence Server where a developer can have access to server logs on runtime errors.

In Cloud version, there is a simple failure message without details

Confluence Blueprints

Create a simple Blueprint

https://developer.atlassian.com/server/confluence/write-a-simple-confluence-space-blueprint/

Confluence REST API

https://developer.atlassian.com/cloud/confluence/rest/

Confluence Basics

Key Points

1. 2 versions - cloud, server
2. cloud is easy to use but you have on control over updates and less configuration, integration options
3. there are 2 editors now in cloud - old and new
4. old editor is basically an enhanced Tinymce -  an open-source Web DAV editor used in many wikis that works well
5. new editor is good now but was horrible when first released
6. new is the default editor
7. if you need the old editor, you can get it by importing a page from an old space into a new space
8. Admins control the cloud wiki and create spaces where pages are stored
9. registered users can be granted edit authority at different levels by admins
10. other users ( anonymous ) can view pages except for the

#Advanced Confluence

bulk reassign and transfer pages from 1 user to another by admin

https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Confluence-Cloud-articles/New-Assign-and-transfer-page-ownership/ba-p/2396313

What’s a page owner

A page owner is the point of contact for page; the person whom others can reach out to for more information about that page’s content. Page owners can be responsible for the content that lives on a page, ensuring that the content on a page stays reliable and up-to-date.

Page owners can be updated at any time by the current page owner, space admin or site admin so that the most appropriate person to manage the page’s content is visible. The original page owner is the page creator and there can only be one page owner for a given page at a time. You can change the ownership of your page, and view the creator and owner history for any page, via a contextual menu within the page byline.

How do you transfer ownership?

As a current page owner, space admin or site admin, you can transfer ownership to another person easily via the ... menu in the page’s byline. You can also review ownership and creator history for any page via this menu.

You can also transfer page ownership by selecting Change page owner from the ... menu in the top-right toolbar.

2. Use the search field to browse for a new owner by name or email. Recent page collaborators will auto-populate first. Once you’ve selected the correct person, select Change owner.

In order to transfer page ownership to someone, they need to have edit access to the page in question, as well as access to the space it resides within.

3. Review the selection you’ve made and select Continue if you’re ready to complete the transfer, or Cancel if you’re not. Once you’ve transferred ownership of your page, this change can’t be reversed.

4. Success! Now that you’ve transferred ownership of the page, you’ll retain edit access to it and remain a page “watcher.” However, if you were previously the owner, you’ll no longer be able to make further transfers of ownership for this page unless you are a space admin or site admin of which the page resides.

Confluence Tips

Best Work Around to Use Old Editor on New pages

Create a Base Page with the Old editor to use as an alternate template going forward

Take an existing page with the old editor functioning

Copy the page to create a base page that will serve as the new page template

Don't use normal Confluence templates any longer

When creating a new page with the old editor, copy the base page created above and provide a new title and tags

Note - You can copy a page from one space to another at this point

This allows moving the base page with the old editor as a master into a new space

Warning - Confluence product team does not support the old editor on the Cloud product

Potential Value Opportunities

Potential Challenges

Confluence Cloud Changes Impact Operations often

Confluence Terms for Plans on features and pricing change frequently creating support issues

https://www.atlassian.com/software/confluence/pricing

free plan is up to 10 users

My plan is up to 7 users for $12 / mo for the team ( not per user )

for more Confluence Bugs - see 

Confluence Notes and Bugs

Bug - 190917- Old Editor pages have macro errors in Firefox

Confluence Cloud editor issues

all confluence open issues list on editor
https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/CONFCLOUD-67784?jql=project%20%3D%20%22CONFCLOUD%22%20and%20type%3Dbug%20and%20summary%20~%20%22editor%22%20and%20status%20not%20in%20(%22closed%22%2C%22cancelled%22)%20and%20priority%20%3D%20%22Highest%22%20order%20by%20createdDate%20desc

Confluence URL for Atlassian support

https://support.atlassian.com/

Login as jim.mason@skywebteam.com   $

confluence update breaks macros on old editor pages on Firefox

Our spaces use the old editor because of the failures of the new editor.
Confluence product management quality failures lead to breaking changes on the cloud version. 90% of the customers want to continue to use the old editor not the new one Atlassian is pushing. Atlassian has stopped testing product changes properly for the old editor on a variety of browsers.
Firefox version is the latest, 69.0
Many macros now fail on pages with the old editor.
The edit menu macro no longer shows on a page when you are the author.
The Table of Contents macro fails

We need Atlassian to guarantee to NOT break features on old editor pages asap!!
I've attached screen shots showing the issue.

I want to know Atlassian will add test cases to validate old editor pages work correctly before any cloud version updates going forward.

Let me know when this issue will be corrected.
Thanks.

I see there are currently already 176 open bugs on the Confluence Cloud editor.
Adding support to use the old editor as an open on pages will probably eliminate at 40% of those open bugs saving Atlassian money and improving customer satisfaction dramatically.

Work around

1. clear cache of all Atlassian cookies, files
2. sign out of Confluence Cloud
3. terminate and restart the browser
4. open an old editor page
5. << the menu and table of contents macros should work

Candidate Solutions

New Page Editor  - Worst UI editor 

incredibly bad designers allowed to create this UI 

i>> how to NOT display a thumbnail of a file but just the URL instead

Step-by-step guide for Example

sample code block

Recommended Next Steps

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