When changing a page in Confluence, there is a text box at the bottom for "What did you change?". Is it possible to make this a required field, so users have to enter a change message? In my previous experience with Wikis, this seems to help a lot when you're looking at list of recent changes or trying to find something in the history of a page, because at the least it provides a hint to relevant/irrelevant changes.
If you don't require users to fill it in, it's easy to forget or simply skip. Making it a required field is about the only way to make it work.
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Update: I ended up doing what Matthew Horn suggested.
To add this, first create a .js file hosted on a webserver somewhere, accessible to anyone accessing your Confluence install. If you're running a proxy in front of the Tomcat confluence server, that is a good place, in for example, a /custom directory.
Contents of this file:
jQuery(function(){
var saveEnabledTitle = 'Save your page ( Type \'Ctrl+S\' )'
var previewEnabledTitle = 'Preview ( Type \'Ctrl+Shift+E\' )'
var saveDisabledTitle = 'Please enter a change comment before saving';
var previewDisabledTitle = 'Please enter a change comment before previewing'; // confluence UI limitation
var saveButtonCheck = function() {
var commentField = jQuery('#rte-savebar #versionComment');
if (commentField.length == 0 || !$(commentField).is(':visible')) return;
if (commentField.val().length > 0) {
jQuery('#rte-savebar #rte-button-publish')
.enable()
.attr('title', saveEnabledTitle);
jQuery('#rte-savebar #rte-button-preview')
.enable()
.attr('title', previewEnabledTitle);
} else {
jQuery('#rte-savebar #rte-button-publish')
.disable()
.attr('title', saveDisabledTitle);
// note: have to disable preview too, since it doesn't work if the publish button is disabled. Probably a workaround but pretty complex.
jQuery('#rte-savebar #rte-button-preview')
.disable()
.attr('title', previewDisabledTitle);
}
}
saveButtonCheck();
jQuery('#rte-savebar #versionComment').keyup(saveButtonCheck);
$('.aui-buttons.toolbar-group-preview, .save-button-container').click(function() { $('#versionComment').focus(); });
});
To add this to your Confluence, under administration, go to Custom HTML and add to "At the end of BODY":
<script type="text/javascript" src="https://hostname/path/to/file.js"></script>
This is a total hack, but it seems to work so far. Note that if you disable the Save button, the Preview function stops working, which is why I also disabled that button (my preference would be to only require the comment to Save, but it's not a big deal).
Warning: after using this for a year, many users still type useless comments like "update" or "edited" or even just a period. I think it probably will take until they have to go back and wade through a couple dozen changes to find a particular edit themselves before see the value. What's the saying.. you can lead a horse to water...
