Is there an alternative to accordion / expand feature?

Question

While the Expand macro is useful for minimally content heavy pages, is there something similar to jQuery Accordion or Expan macro that can provide the ability to support a sectioned, content heavy page?

I have been asked to update a pages accessibility, as well as the associated content, that is using the ToC macro to be redirected to the referenced section on the page. Which can make for a very long page of content a user can get very easily lost on.

Instead of redirecting to a new location much lower on the page, when the user selected the link for the desired section if this would open an area similar to the Expand macro, but allow for multiple pages within it to be displayed and scrolled through similar to the accordion effect.

It would provide the end user a more enjoyable experience with the appearance that the content is seemingly closer without seemingly being taken to the edge of the abyss, and then back with a top link. From a code perspective, yeah, the page would still be a 100 miles long.

I am working with v5.8.6.

Shannon S · Answer

Hi Michael,

Have you used the Excerpt Include macros before? We use them a lot here at Atlassian. It allows you to mark one excerpt from a page (using the Excerpt Macro), and duplicate it on as many pages as you want. That way, if you need to edit it, you only have to do it the one time, and all the other pages that mention that excerpt will be updated.

My recommendation would be to work on the upgrade first, since many customers have already had their instances compromised due to the exploit. Once you perform the upgrade and confirm that it's working, you can start to rebuild your pages to improve the performance.

Regards

Shannon

Michael Insua · Answer

Shannon,

Thanks for the information.

I'm not a big fan of parking all of your content on a single page, nor bouncing from one page to another because of a change in related content.  We work with what we're given, including parameters that don't always put design and layout first, let alone actually work the way it was intended later on.

Guess I was hoping for a hidden reprieve of sorts.

And, as you pointed out, I am working in an out dated environment, though  successfully patched. There is ( always ) considerable discussion about how to best go about upgrading the environment. Problem is there was a heavy reliance on a specific theme and a couple of now deprecated macros  to build out the spaces when it was initially deployed.

It would seem that I am in a bit of a catch 22 in getting the page of content sorted out.

M

Shannon S · Answer

Hello Michael,

Welcome to Community! It's nice to meet you.

I'm not aware of any add-ons specifically that can accomplish this, but have a look at the existing add-ons for Confluence Server related to the Expand Macro. You may find one there that works for you.

In terms of one that works with a content-heavy page, I am reluctant to say if something like that would exist. In general, you should try to keep your Confluence pages small enough to avoid performance issues. If you find you are having performance issues, then the next step would be to break the page up into smaller child pages.

Most importantly, I want to caution you that your Confluence version of 5.8.6 is very outdated and reached End of Life back in June of 2017. It will likely not be compatible with many of the add-ons being offered today. Moreover we have had two Security Advisories related to outdated versions of Confluence. You must upgrade your Confluence instance ASAP to a latest version to avoid your instance being compromised.

You can review the security advisories below:

* Confluence Security Advisory - 2019-04-17
* Confluence Security Advisory - 2019-03-20

In addition, my colleague Daniel has written an informative piece which answers most questions you might have about the advisories:

* Confluence CVEs and common questions

I recommend that you upgrade as soon as you are possibly able to avoid issues like this.

Let me know if you have any questions about this.

Regards,

Shannon