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.
Everyone, Please add these comments and vote for:
https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/CONFCLOUD-56841
Ditto. The sidebar is an ESSENTIAL element... It was bad enough when the last design change happened and the sidebar became restricted, full of features I don't want or need. I'm still reeling from that!
Is this going to be rolled out to Server customers?
The harsh blue colours and confusing navigation will completely frustrate our users. This won't go down well with our organisation.
Has anyone got any screenshots or a video captures yet?
@Susan Hauth _Jira Queen_ Is this going to be reviewed. I find a lot of the tickets in Jira eventually collects dust with no action.
Hi Martin,
It's been updated. The only way it will get reviewed is if we get a LOT of noise in there. I have added in a pointer back to these conversations. Please vote and make noise in the issue.
Susan
Yes, but not for a long time - the impression I get was years rather than months. Possibly long enough to get the functions we actually want back!
I totally &^%(@#&%^@(*^&#@(*^& agree about this (*^%@*)&%^#@(*&_(*^&@...
test... (a perfectly normal comment I tried to add keeps getting blocked)
I tried to add in the latest email exchange I had with Atlassian regarding the issue I opened about the UI.
Excerpt:
"...This is valuable feedback and I have forwarded this issue to my manager, the dev team behind the new look as well as the Product Manager, so rest assure that your feedback is being heard, as well as any other feedback throughout all our channels (Community, public bug tracker, Tweeter, etc).
This change isn't just about the looks, the dev team really believe that in the long run, after our customers get used to the new layout, our customers will get more tasks done and faster, this is our main goal with the change..."
My response was basically, why does the dev team believe users will get 'more tasks done and faster'?
It is evident from this heated thread that the dev team has missed many critical use cases, worse, they've broken existing use cases that many users depend on and have invested a huge amount of knowledge capture using, often over many years (as we have).
Ditto on the 'sell to the business' thing. We're trying to get everybody to use this as the go-to-point-of-truth and buy-in is not easy, especially since we have a very diversely populated business. The latest changes make me feel like a hypocrite when I try to point out the features of Confluence that make it so useful and overall loveable.
The only thing that I can say with a straight face is to paraphrase Winston Churchill. "Worst product, except for all the others."
"millennial-developer mentality"
Yep. It's real.
"dev team really believe that in the long run, after our customers get used to the new layout, our customers will get more tasks done and faster"
Seriously? Have they done any research to back that up, or is this just faith in their own beliefs? This what happens when developers and designers loser touch with reality.
Hey,
Martin I actually replied to an email thread we have open, but just for the benefit of others- regarding the issues you mentioned -
Hope this helps.
Hey Liron
Thanks for your feedback. Let me quickly reply to some of these points:
As I said, there were improvements in the last days and I really appreciate these. On the other hand, I can not confirm that «the new navigation still offers times better performance and page loads than the old» – my experience so far was just the other way round.
Yes, once you have clicked on «Pages» in a specific space this is the default next time you open that space. But then the space home page is not visible anymore and you have to click again to bring it back. Having the page tree on the left and the home page on the right was simply perfect. It's the same principle like on any webpage: Present the home page plus a navigation at the same time. Why hide either of them?
Regarding the page order: I added this point later after reading this: https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Confluence-discussions/Cannot-sort-drag-links-in-Confluence-Space-sidebar/td-p/624364#M302
But now that I am thinking about it I am not sure that it was ever possible do reorder pages directly in the page tree. And maybe it's not a good idea anyway, because people could rearrange pages accidentially while browsing.
- Martin
I'll take user experience over performance, 9 times out of 10. I'd prefer to cruise in a Bentley, than speed along in a Fiat 500.
Wow, seriously?!!?!? They have no idea what impact their changes are making.
They've changed the URLs from, for example:
https://newvoicemedia.atlassian.net/wiki/display/DP/Quality+Management
to:
https://newvoicemedia.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/DP/pages/230401873/Quality+Management
This has caused a problem for me... I used to just change the space key to jump from the same page in my dev space to my public space. Instead, I now have to remove the page id and change from 'spaces' to 'display'. One tiny edit to three.
I emailed about this and they told me it was part of a bigger change... this change I guess.
For a short while I could click on the page title to get the simpler URL, but yesterday that disappeared too.
I've long known that this is the wrong tool for our public facing documentation and this is yet another leap away from what I need...
Hi Liron
you said :"Once you are on 'Pages' in a specific space, it will always then remember that this was your last top item visited and take you there next time you go to that space. So, the extra click to get to 'Pages' should be saved on subsequent visits to the space. Is this not happening for you?"
I'm sorry to tell you this does not work for anonymous users (all our customers accessing our documentation) and the search button that should show me the latest visited pages gives no history. So now the sidebar cannot be customized and the space shortcuts are not displayed anymore in all pages, it's a pain to get back to a parent space. I have to try to add these options in the space header which is not even displayed anymore in the overview page and I don't talk about the display issues I'm facing with the use of section/column in the header. As I already said bugs are acceptable, removal of useful functions is not.
Another issue. In the (largely hidden) page tree, to see a long page name, you need to expand the side bar or click to open the page to see the full title. It used to be that the page name would fit (to a certain length—the new font is bigger) or hovering over the name revealed the full title.
I have users who HATE the new UI. These are very tech-savvy users and not just people afraid of change...
Dear Atlassian,
If I was to peruse the list of voted features in JAC, pretty sure there wasn't anything voted up like "remove page tree from sidebar because it slows things down"
Please stop changing the UI every release and concentrate on the issues that are sitting with 500+ votes. That's what your user community wants, not to learn ANOTHER UI that some designers and developers dreamt up in an obvious bubble.
Please leverage the involved community to participate in proposed drastic UI changes early on and not after you have released them.
Please stop concentrating on "Pretty" instead of "Functional".
Susan (AUG Leader, AUG Council Member, QUAD Committee Council Member, Atlassian User for 9 years and who was completely blindsided by this new UI).
Your new interface sucks. I'm sure you are chalking all these comments upto the price of integration across platforms and whiners. But it sucks. I need spaces as they were, as others have already commented. And really - too much trouble to leave a search box? A universally understood idea that any user can find? Brilliant idea - move it under an icon and then clutter it up with 'recent times' and 'recent spaces'. What a cluster-suck.
STRONGLY 2nd David's comment about how bad moving the search box and button is for our user base.
The first thing I tell neophyte users is that they can always find anything on the entire site by just starting to type into the search box and if needed using the search button - and that those can always be seen on the menu bar and directly accessible.
Now it's a confusing morass of popups and clutter.
I tried this with my old UI wiki and my new UI wiki (two instances, but identical content).
Example:
https://mynewuiwiki.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/WOR/pages/2326564/New+Confluence+Test+Page
https://myolduiwiki.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/WOR/pages/77201435/New+Confluence+Test+Page
So while the IDs differ, the URL structure remains the same. Or am I missing something?
The URLs changed a little while before this new UI but I think it might be something to do with it...
I logged a support request about it on the 1st August asking if and why the URLs had changed. Their reply:
"As a part of new Confluence design, we are also updating the way how links are displayed, which is why you saw this change. There is nothing wrong on your end."
So your old UI wiki will already have the URL update. The old URLs still work (currently) so this link will probably work for you:
https://mynewuiwiki.atlassian.net/wiki/display/x/New+Confluence+Test+Page
and I expect
https://myolduiwiki.atlassian.net/wiki/display/x/New+Confluence+Test+Page
(as long as I've not made any typos!)
The way I use Confluence is to have two almost identical spaces—one internal, one public. I make changes in the internal one during product development and when the product I'm documenting is released I copy my changes (using a CLI tool) to the public space. I often need to compare the two pages in the different spaces. I used to simply change the space key in the URL to go from one space to the other. Now I need to change space name, 'spaces' --> 'display' and remove the page ID. I imagine that soon enough the old URLs will not work and I'll have to drill down through the (hidden!) page tree to locate the pages in their different spaces. Seems minor but when dealing with tens of pages—day in, day out—the time adds up!
(This is a simplified version. I have more than two spaces in reality - staging and pilot spaces, for example.)
(Sorry for the multiple messages! I was getting a 'spam' message when sending. I couldn't figure out what the problem was so split up the message into chunks! For future reference it didn't like the links.)
Hey Bruce, not sure why this is the feeling, we in the team read through thousands of bad and good comments every single day coming from the product, and we do contact many customers who give feedback and allow us to contact them, in order to understand more of the context.
If you would like to set up a session with us for a 30 minute interview, please let me know. I would love to sit with you and understand the pains youre experiencing in the product with the new experience in more detail.
Thanks,
Liron
Confluence PM
Hey Robert,
Thanks for this feedback.
As for switching spaces - we are on it and will provide an easy way for you to do this in the new design too.
Search - is still the same number of clicks just like before. I realise visually this is a big change and takes time getting used to, I'd love to know what you think of it in 2-3 weeks time of using it? Please let me know.
Page tree is still available whenever you view a page if you expand your sidebar. I understand some people need/want it also on overview page. There are many many use cases of it disturbing and taking focus away from the overview page, for some types of spaces.
I assure you we are considering all these use cases and will continue to listen to customers and improve on this. Your voices are being heard. None of this will be ignored.
Thanks for the feedback again,
Thanks for this feedback Bruno. The anonymous user angle is an interesting one which we are now looking at and will continue to improve.
I wanted to ask, what do you mean by "get back to a parent space" ? What represents a parent space? Do you just mean the current space overview of the space you are in? Or something else?
Thanks
Agreed. As I've noted elsewhere, I NEED the sidebar and I NEED it to be customizable. My users really really struggle with finding information in Confluence—we have tens of spaces and anything that helps with navigation is essential. I have a complex navigation which works like the contents of a book. I need to add sections dividers without actual content, like the blank page of a book that marks the next 'part'.
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