Is there a way to make Live Docs open in view mode by default?

[Steve]

When someone shares a Live Doc with me, it opens in edit mode, even though I'm not the owner and just want to read it. I've checked my settings and can't find an option to change this.

Am I missing something? If not, is a user preference for this on the roadmap? I read Confluence pages more than I edit them, and manually switching to view mode every time is frustrating UX.

[Barbara Szczesniak]

@Steve This is the difference between a Live Doc and a Page. A Live Doc is meant to be editable by everyone with edit access to it—at the same time.

If you do not want to be able to edit the content, ask the owner to remove your edit access.

If you need to be able to edit it when you want to, you might ask the owner to convert it to a Page so that people are forced to open it in Edit mode when they want to make changes. This means, however, that only 1 person can edit it at a time.

For more information, see:

• https://community.atlassian.com/forums/Confluence-articles/New-collaboration-features-in-Confluence-Cloud/ba-p/3028771 
• https://support.atlassian.com/confluence-cloud/docs/create-and-collaborate-in-real-time-with-live-docs/ 

[Steve]

Thanks @Barbara Szczesniak! I'm familiar with the difference between Live Docs and Pages. To clarify what I'm after: I'd like to keep edit access (I do edit pages occasionally) and have Live Docs open in view mode by default for me personally. A user-level preference, not a permission or page type change.

Does anyone know if that's currently possible, or if it's something Atlassian has considered adding?

[Barbara Szczesniak]

@Steve That's the thing—there is no view mode for a Live Doc if you have the ability to edit it. 

[Steve]

@Barbara Szczesniak That's not quite right. There is a view mode for Live Docs, even with edit access. Under More actions there's a "Switch to viewing" option, which I use manually whenever I open one. The mode already exists, I'd just like a way to set it as my default rather than toggling every time.

[Barbara Szczesniak]

I'm sorry, @Steve  I never noticed that option or heard mention of it. I would guess that there is no way to change it to be a personal default; I don't see anything in my personal Confluence settings for this.

Perhaps someone else will chime in with a more definitive answer.

[Tomislav Tobijas]

Hi @Steve ,

There's a feature request related to what you're looking for: CONFCLOUD-83456: Add an option to turn the "Switch to Viewing" mode on by default for Live docs 

The only workaround would be to add content restrictions 🔒 so only specific people or groups have edit permission, which would result in everyone else landing on live doc view mode. 

To sum it up - you cannot change the behavior of this just yet.

Cheers,
Tobi