The left-hand page tree nav bar just disappeared from my space, and I can't find any way to navigate other than searching. There doesn't seem to be a page tree anywhere in the Space Tools.
I can't find the admin tools to log a support issue, either.
I eventually found this:
https://confluence.atlassian.com/confcloud/new-navigation-and-a-new-look-for-confluence-881536766.html
I was thrown off because clicking the Pages icon had no effect the first time (probably Firefox flakiness).
There's still a page tree, it's just buried two or three levels down and can't be displayed in the sidebar.
Without the admin menus, I don't have the service agreement number or whatever it's called.
Ah, it was just the new interface. Sorry, completely misdiagnosed it!
Ouch. I want the page tree back! This is not going to make my users very happy. Wonder how we request this?
Hi Susan,
you can give feedback directly in the new sidebars:
But I am also fearing the moment, I have to confront 1000s of employees with the new interface...
Already did. But feedback after the fact is never really that effective.
This caught us off guard too when suddenly the "New Confluence Experience" (WTF are they a Disney ride now??) appeared upon login.
I immediately advised our user base to 'opt out' but as of Aug 24 we are going to be stuck with the clunky, ugly and infuriating "New Confluence Experience". I've opened a feedback issue but we're probably screwed. (It's like all the gnashing of teeth when the markup was deprecated - but at least that had technical justification and useful vestiges were left).
At least for our mission sites supporting operational activities are self-hosted so we won't be upgrading those for the next few years. We have customized sidebars that rely on having the page tree the default view.
The 'New Confluence Experience' claims to clean things up with the contextual menus, but the dynamic behavior confuses users and the new icons, fonts and line spacing is clunky and wastes huge amount of space.
Bottom line: sidebars and menus should be complete configurable by site admin with the 'legacy' and the 'new experience' provided as the out-of-the-box options.
Hi,
Please vote for my issue to have a page tree back on the Space page:
CONFCLOUD-56841
Susan
Certainly not a fan of the new interface.
If they can manage to run them in parallel for this long, why can't they give the users the permanent choice of using either "old" or "new". Or as I like to call them "useful" and "painful".
Because "useful" is going away, it's going to be removed from the code, so it can't be permanent.
Hopefully, it won't go anywhere until "painful" has been brought up to scratch. My opinion is that "painful" needs a lot of work as it feels like it's a design that's passed the automated unit tests but not real user tests.
I'd be interested to see the statistics on the percentage of users that have opted out of "painful".
Same here. I'm sticking with it because I need to learn, but I wouldn't be surprised to find some high numbers of opt-outs.
If the UI callback functionality is hardcode dependent on the UI layout then it's a lousy implementation!!
There should be no reason why the menu bar and side bar locations, content, icons, fonts, layout and hide/show defaults should be completely configurable, irrespective of the functionality that they invoke.
It would indeed be interesting to see the 'opt out' statistics.
I am very happy to see that other Confluence users share my frustration about the new UI. There are many aspects to it, but the new page tree is the worst part of something that looks nice, but is terrible to use.
May main pain points:
I just learned that the opt-out option will go away soon and that we will be forced to use the new UI soon. This will be the day when I'll start evaluating an alternative to Confluence Cloud.
Registered to add my complaint to this. The Page-Tree in the left nav, and how it provides structure guidance to users is one of the main reasons we use confluence! Please add back!
I wish I could 'evaluate' as well, but the people I work for are committed to it, and we have too much knowledge tranferred to the system to reconsider options. Buyer beware...
Where did you find that the "opt out" functionality will be removed Aug 24? Looking for information about how long this functionality will be possible.
Vote for the issue Susan raised - Atlassian don't look here for weighting or complaints. See CONFCLOUD-56841
Haven't read every comment, but whole heartly agree with most of them.
I realize you guys thought your were improving confluence but this latest UX paradigm shift is just a PITA and frankly it doesn't help people that actually use the system.
I'm sure your UX team is very excited and it must demo great but frankly it isn't better.
I switch spaces a lot. This release makes that harder.
I search a lot. This release makes that harder.
I use the page tree a lot. This release makes that harder.
I'm not worried about the bugs in these new feature, I'm worried about your direction.
Besides giving me lots of real estate for content, it doesn't do anything for me.
I don't know what the balance is but my advice is get another project to keep you busy, seems like some people just have too much time on their hands.
A notification is being displayed at the top of the pages on our cloud site:
The new Confluence experience is now available for everyone, and we'll be turning it back on for you between August 24–31. Opt back in now or learn more before it lands.
Well said!
A triumph of aesthetics over function.
It certainly could improve usability were there different priorities given to what's important. And some missing features returned.
But why (for example) show a Gliffy Diagram or Blog shortcut when I arrive at a space? But not a page tree...? Who do you think your audience is?
agreed!
...and even the 'aesthetics' are questionable. I find the 'new' look UI visually unbalanced and clunky.
I do really wonder where the requirements and design for this came from. Most of the comments here and in the related threads and issue point out how central to the user experience the pagetree and configurable sidebar is to many customers.
Much as I'm an Atlassian fan-boy, I have to say this change has failed me as well.
There are parts of it I like, many I'm not bothered about, and one that really jumps out as a terrible design. I normally think in pictures or monospaced orange and black text, 25 by 40, so I don't usually feel qualified to talk about user interfaces a lot.
But I want my side-bar back. I'm perfectly fine with a show/hide option, and hiding it when in edit, search or admin where it might not be useful.
But any time I am reading a Space, I want a consistent sidebar with space shortcuts and a static, explorable page tree that tells you where you are and doesn't change the context all the time.
Totally agreed!
I've also been a fan-boy and have championed/admin'ed Confluence/JIRA in our organization. This kind of upheaval makes it harder to 'sell', as it's a constant battle to get some of the team to use. Making it more confusing to navigate just turns off the skeptics even more.
I'd also like to voice my displeasure. The left nav is used as our primary form of navigation. Making that non-configurable adds unnecessary clicks to the experience (no page tree), and adds features that are not used (Blog). Please make this area configurable again. In a Wiki, Function >>>> Form.
Leave the #$%ing Tree alone - it was FINE. Its our primary navigation tool - enter the space, hit the tree, navigate = Done! Now we are stuck with new age hippie UX bullshit that requires clicking our dumb arse around the UI just to get to the Tree. We pay thousands for this system, specifically cause it has a kick-arse Tree - why are we being asked to wear this UX #$%-up?
I love the way Atlassian asks for comments on the Confluence interface "update", and every time you opt out and go back to the old one, they ask for reasons, even asking if the can contact you w.r.t. your comment.
And then they ignore user input. "Take their money, ignore their requests" seems to be the way some successful software companies are going when they get a large enough user-base.
User experience has no place when all that matters is simplistic code-reuse and getting code out the door ASAP.
Welcome to the millennial-developer mentality.
I tried to opt out and found all the bugs and issues I have now with the new interface were gone... but I had to get back to the new "cool and amaaaaazing" interface because all our customers who access our documentation are anonymous users and then cannot opt out so I need to find solutions.
I really like Confluence, I use it very often and I ask my team to use it as much as they can. I can accept bugs, it's hard to accept several bugs but it is not acceptable to have features we had that are now removed. I really have other things to do than spending my time finding workarounds to the features I used and that were very helpful.
AGGGGHHHHHHH!
I rely HEAVILY on the page tree - well, more the sidebar as I'd customized the page tree such that it worked for us. I need to COMPLETELY design my customer-facing product documentation space so that users can find pages...
Why does Confluence do this, simply take away MAJOR features? Is there any way to get prior notification of these changes?!
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