quick and dirty macros?

[Pat Erler]

hi,

I am fairly new to confluence, so bear with me.

I see that I can create templates, macros and even repeating forms with scaffolding. What I actually need is a quick way to repeat certain elements, say, a table 2 by 5 with certain informations about a server which I need to put into all kind of documents and later edit it (which doesn't seem to be possible with HTML elements in macros).

What would be the best approach or a plugin that helps with this kind of problem?

best,

Pat

[Bill Bailey · Accepted solution]

This is what templates are for. You are basically creating a blank document with a set structure and fixed elements. Then you when you create a new document based on the template, you now have all the elements from the template copied to your new page.

I use templates for standardized forms, and include instructional text to guide the user. This system ensure consistency of pages, and saves a lot of time for things like a partially blank table with set headings and entries that don't change.

[Abdullah AlThawr]

Since you mentioned scaffolding, you can use live-template macro in the scaffolding plugin like this:

1) Create the table you want in the global or space template, or even a page (like a parent page). Templates are preferred in your case. 

2) Put the needed scaffolding macros you need in your columns (e.g. text-data, number data etc..)

3) Whenever you create a new page or edit a page, add the live-template macro and put the name of your template (or page name if the source of your template is a page).

4) Save the page, and view it. Your new/edited page will contain the same table elements and all you have to is edit the details using 'edit-content'.

The live template macro will work even if your template page has just static data (i.e. no other scaffolding macros) that you want to repeat in your pages.

[Ted Mahsun [ServiceRocket]]

Just to add on (hah, pun not intended) to what Abdullah said, here's a guide for Scaffolding's Live Templates. Includes a video!