Link to undefined, placeholder pages

[Traci Wilbanks]

@Sarah Moens and @Patrick O_Malley - The blog is published weekly on Mondays.  You can watch the blog so that you'll get notified when a new one is posted.  

[Traci Wilbanks]

Hi again @Sarah Moens 

Your comment about using placeholder links in templates just hit me. 

Placeholder links can't be added to templates right now.  The team chose to rollout the basic functionality sooner rather than later and build on the additional characteristics, like adding links from the toolbar and slash command.  Adding these kinds of links to templates is being discussed.

We'll share more information here in Community ASAP, but watch the blog to be notified when features actually start their rollout.

Thanks!
Traci

[Sarah Moens]

Hi @Traci Wilbanks 

Thank you for the information. I will watch the blog to follow-up on additional features.

Kind regards,

Sarah

[Roel Thys]

Hi @Traci Wilbanks 

I was wondering if there were any future plans to either include a template in the link to an undefined page, or if it creates a blank page, to then still apply a template on that blank page? 

We currently have some templates defined that we require user to use, but the link to undefined page as it is designed now, doesn't allow for the use of templates. Or am I missing something?

Kr, Roel

[Traci Wilbanks]

You are correct, @Roel Thys

The placeholder link feature doesn't work in templates, yet.  The team understands the need, and discussions are happening.  More info when we have it.

~Traci

[Gary Holeman]

@Traci WilbanksI think that @Roel Thys's question is not about using placeholders within a template, but in enforcing the use of a template when someone clicks on the placeholder to create the page.  I have the same issue.  I don't want someone to click on the placeholder and start from a blank page, which is what it does now.  I want either a specified template to be applied to the new page or some way of setting the default template for my space.  Is there any way to do that?

[Ed Laczynski]

Thank you!

[Roel Thys]

@Gary Holeman @Traci Wilbanks Indeed, I wasn't referring to putting "undefined links" inside a template. I was referring to the page creation after clicking an "undefined link". As Gary says, today you get just a blank page. It would be nice to have the ability to choose your template at that point instead of having to recreate the template each time from a blank page because you can't apply existing templates. It doesn't necessarily need to be forced imo, but I can see how there could be a use case for that at some companies.

Edit: I am wondering though if this might realize what I'm hoping for above:  https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Confluence-articles/Template-Previews-and-Categories-coming-soon-to-your-site/ba-p/1458455?utm_source=atlcomm&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=immediate_general_article&utm_content=topic

[Traci Wilbanks]

AHHH!  Thanks you for helping clarify this @Gary Holeman and @Roel Thys

I now see what you mean.  If I'm with you, you want the person creating the placeholder link to set which template will be used when the placeholder is selected and the new page is created.  I'm not sure this was part of the discussion...yet.  I'll make sure to pass this along to the team.

Thank you!

[Gary Holeman]

There you go, @Traci Wilbanks , you got it exactly.

[mat jung]

Sounds like I am not the only one who struggles with creating links to new pages.

[Macurion]

Hi @Traci Wilbanks ,
great feature which I was looking forward to, is there a way yet to list / search for all placeholder pages in order to get an overview what still needs to be created?

Kind regards
Marc

[Traci Wilbanks]

@Macurion - There is!  Go to Space Settings > Content Tools > Undefined Pages. 
That tab shows you pages that haven't been defined (haven't been created) and the page on which the placeholder link exists.  

We are thinking about a better label for that tab.  If a page hasn't been created, can it really be called a page?  Would love to know if this is just overthinking things or if that tab name makes sense.

Cheers!
Traci  

[Skip Sailors]

It is an unset link, a dangling reference, a link without a page, an empty link, a link to an unwritten page, a citation to nothing, ...

[BrianK]

So many thanks! I was about to pull my hair out missing this.

[Alistair Morgan]

This is an absolutely critical feature and despite all this discussion it still does not work. 
If I edit a page and type  [Placeholder Page Name]().

When I publish the page it appears as [Placeholder Page Name]() it is not interpreted as an undefined page.  Its not interpreted at all.

Any tips for this increasingly despairing user.  I am on cloud version 

Confluence 1000.0.0-7eb8736e5518

I am the internal atlassian champion for my work and I can no longer support the use of confluence as an internal wiki if this doesnt work.  Sorry to be so harsh but this worked in the old editor and was removed.  It is a standard wiki feature.

Edit
For anyone else reading this.

I raised a level 2 ticket and within 2 hours I tried it again and it now works
no contact from Atlassian other than automated "well look at it" ticket updates its just fixed.
My confluence cloud version is now

Confluence 1000.0.0-1a1c7fa99389

Im based in Sydney Australia

Thanks Atlassian.  Dont know what buttons you twiddled but cheers

[Fondation Energeia]

Thanks @Alistair Morgan 

this is exactly what I experience: 

"When I publish the page it appears as [Placeholder Page Name]() it is not interpreted as an undefined page.  Its not interpreted at all."

How is it possible to update the cloud version number as you mentioned? 

Mine is

Confluence 1000.0.0-120d725a62d0

and it does not work. @Traci Wilbanks any ideas how to reach the level Alistair Morgan reached via his ticket level 2? 

Would help a lot thanks for your help, community, thanks for the service atlassian-team, highly appreciated. 

FL

UPDATE..... NOW it works :-) Incredible. What happened? Fine I can do this wiki -formatting which helps a lot! Will there be also a button in future just to wiki-fy the word or phrase... then it will be fast as lightning to create network-information. When could this be ready?  Thanks a lot.  

[Traci Wilbanks]

@Fondation Energeia glad to hear that it is now working. Did it just need a page refresh? Curious to know what the lag time was between it not working, you seeking help here, and then it working.

This wiki formatting method is not meant to be the end of of the evolution of this feature. Stay tuned. :)

[Aaron Bernstein]

@Traci Wilbanks what's the current status of this? it doesn't seem like I'm currently able to create a link to an undefined page which, after the page is created, then links to that page rather than to a "create page" url

[Hannah Sanderson]

This is currently a high-priority issue for us, and we're working on a fix. Thank you so much for your patience, and I'll definitely reach back out when I have a better sense of when it is expected to be resolved.

[Aaron Bernstein]

Thanks @Hannah Sanderson fyi we have opened a support ticket JST-989098

[Dan Green]

This is great for when a missing page is known. For an unknown missing page, the workflow is a bit awkward. Can we get this added to the UI?  Perhaps a "none of the above" option when choosing which page to link to.