Content By Label macro displays ugly box when nothing matches yet

Question

This is what I'm getting as I'm setting up a page to detect and list pages with specific labels:

I do not want to see *anything* in this space if nothing satisfies what I'm asking it to look for, let alone this icky box. Surely this is unintentional?? Is there a timeline to fix it? is there a workaround in the meantime?

Shannon S · Answer

Hello Charisma,

Thank you for the follow-up.

Since each macro has been developed separately, they will function differently from each other. These macros won't necessarily share the same behaviors across the board.

With the Content by Label macro, it is the intention that any information returned (or not returned) by the macro will appear as a panel. I have consulted the development team related to Confluence macros, and they have confirmed this is expected behavior.

Regarding the workaround, the only workaround is the one mentioned in the thread I linked yesterday, which is the CSS workaround. CSS workarounds are only possible in Confluence Server. There is no workaround in Confluence Cloud.

Since the original feature request was closed some time ago, I've raised a new one here:

* CONFCLOUD-70232 Ability to specify behavior in Content by Label macro when pages are returned

Thank you again for bringing this up to us!

Take care, and have a pleasant rest of your week.

Shannon

unknown · Answer

Hi, Shannon. Thanks for the explanation. I am confused, though, because other similar macros do not display anything on screen when it finds no content that matches. Honestly, my users will see it as an error. Why was the decision made to keep a visible visual element to mark content was not found? Is there a workaround? For instance, is there a way to attach blank pages to each item with the correct label? Also, is there a way to hide some pages with a specific label with some sort of tag or something that auto-hides it? If that exists, I might be able to make blank pages (a page requires a title, unfortunately, so that would be displayed) with labels that match, and then just "disable" those dummy pages once there is content for that part. Is that a viable solution? If not, what other choices do I have? Please consult with your team for a workaround. This is quite unexpected on our end, considering other native macros just don't return anything if nothing is found, as expected. Thank you.

Shannon S · Answer

Hello Charisma,

Nice to see you, and thank you for bringing this to us.

This is the expected UI when there is no content that matches the label you've chosen. There's unfortunately no way to hide that, outside of using CSS, which isn't possible in Confluence Cloud.

I can see that this has been requested in the past to change, but there are no plans for that currently:

* CONFCLOUD-40839 Content By Label Macro - no content info

I'm sorry that I don't have better news for you on this, but at this confirms that it is intentional.

Thank you, and take care.

Shannon