Tips, Tricks and Traps

Tips

  • permissions -- Confluence has flexible permission management levels from page up to space. Here are some tips for working with them.
    • If you set any permission for anonymous be sure to have similar permission level set for group: Confluence Users unless you specifically want them excluded.
      • For example if you want anonymous users to read pages in a space, you should add "Confluence Users" group and give them permission to read page as well or else when a person signs up and logs in they will not be able to see the page.
    • You can set a page and it's sub-pages to have 3 levels of read and of write access: (1) world - everbody, (2) me - your login only, and (3) a Group - only one Group can be selected here.
  • macros -- Confluence has a number of macros that can be used as templates  and other functions. When you enter an macro in the edit window be sure to use the *Wiki Markup* view to make sure the correct characters are used.  Currently I have examples of a macro available for you look at
  • plugins -- Confluence also supports plugins. When you enter an plugin in the edit window be sure to use the *Wiki Markup* view to make sure the correct characters are used.  Currently I have examples of a macro available for you look at:
    • Calendar Plugin -- {calendar:id=ghbtestcalendar|title=My Test Calendar} -- George's Test Calendar(two of the calendars displayed here are "subscriptions" of ical calendars from my personal .Mac account. These are updated dynamically as I change the calendar from my desktop calendar.)
    • Note: assign a name / title for title that would be appropriate for the calendar you will be setting up
    • It's something to think about using subscriptions to capture and share calendars in iCal or ics format from the net.
    • Atlassian Confluence Plugin Information
  • Layout -- Left Navigation bar
    • I noticed that couple spaces have chosen the Left Navigation Bar layout or "Space Theme" and that they have menu items in the bar. It took me a little bit to discover how to edit the menu.
      • When you go to > Browse Space > Space Theme and select Left Navigation Theme
      • Once you do that you'll see option to Configure Theme under the Current Theme Heading. When you click on that you can enter the name of the page to be used for the Left Navigation. The default is Navigation.
      • go to the Home Page, click on Add Content (page), give it the name Navigation put in your menu items, save and Bingo! you've got left nav items.
  • Links -- TO a wiki page FROM an external web page
    • Each of the following two ways for linking to a wiki page from the web has an advantage and disadvantage, though #2 is more functional from an operational standpoint:
      1. Use the URL you see in the address bar, e.g., https://wiki.internet2.edu/confluence/display/IWS/I2W+Admin+TTT
        • Advantage: The name of the page is embedded in the link - easy to read!
        • Disadvantage: If you ever change the name of the page, it also changes the URL - causing you to choose between the headache of updating all the links on external web pages linking to it, or never being able to change the page name.
      2. Use the Tiny Link found on the Info tab of the page you want, e.g., https://wiki.internet2.edu:443/confluence/x/dgY
        • Advantage: The Tiny Link stays the same, no matter when or what you change the wiki page name to!
        • Disadvantages: The destination of the link is not so evident by looking at the Tiny Link. Also, you cannot link to a named anchor within the wiki page.

Tricks

  • Space-admins may view a complete listing of members within a Group, - even if they do not have the [global] permission to Create Group or Add Members to a Group. Here's how:
    1. In the Browse Space>Space-admin>Edit Permissions page, under Individual Users, try to add a member by searching. As your search parameter, just enter the name of a Group, and it will list all the users currently signed up under that group. Of course, you can cancel the search if you don't really intend to add anyone to the list.
    2. Note: this only allows you to view a list of individual users to give permissions to; you must still request a SuperUser, e.g., George, to add a new person.
    3. Don't know which Groups are available, in order to search for a particular user? Do a search under the Group permissions, and you will see a list of all the Groups available. Then go back to Step 1, and continue your search as explained.

Traps

Restricting Page to group  - You need to be a member of the group before you can restrict the page. Even though I'm wiki administrator I could not set page restrictions to group read. I had to assign my user id to that group and then I could restrict page and it's children to that group. (Confluence Reference Page)

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