Confluence Cloud gadgets are being deprecated

[#1]

Hello Community,

In one month, on May 14, 2020, we will end support for the following Gadgets in Confluence Cloud:

• Activity Stream gadget

• Confluence Page gadget

• Confluence Quick Nav gadget

• News gadget

Any existing instances of these gadgets will still work. However, you won't be able to insert them into the legacy editor or the new editor using the macro browser, slash command, or a shortcut key.

ℹ️End of support means that Atlassian will not longer fix bugs related to these gadgets.

Gadgets were designed to allow you to display information dynamically from sources like iGoogle or Jira, for example, in Confluence. The first gadgets were introduced in the early versions of Confluence Server, and much of the technology they used is now obsolete. Since then we have also implemented a number of better ways to display dynamic information using macros and other integration points.

⚠️ If your Confluence site is integrated with a Jira site, any Jira gadgets installed in Confluence ARE NOT IMPACTED by this change. You can continue to insert Jira gadgets into any Confluence page.

Activity Stream gadget

The Activity stream gadget shows a list of recently changed content in your site. We recommend using the Recently Updated macro as an alternative in Confluence. 

Confluence Page gadget

This gadget displays the contents of a Confluence page. We recommend using the Include Page macro as an alternative in Confluence.  

Confluence Quick Nav gadget

This gadget provides a search field that can be used to search for page titles in Confluence. We recommend using the Livesearch macro as an alternative in Confluence. 

News gadget

This gadget previously displayed blogs and other news from Atlassian.

If you have questions or concerns, please comment on this issue.

[Edward Newman]

Is there a way to find out where these gadgets are used so they can be proactively removed?

[Samuel Valdez]

An exact date would also be helpful.  Thank you.

[Hua Soon SIM _Akeles_]

I tested on our cloud site at https://akeles.jira.com/wiki/spaces/GAUGE/overview to identify those pages that are using the gadget macros.

According to https://support.atlassian.com/confluence-cloud/docs/confluence-search-syntax/, the query term macroName:gadget should work.

However, I only managed to get it working using the older dosearchsite page

You can change the link below with your Confluence Base URL which is highlighted in bold to identify the pages 

https://akeles.jira.com/wiki/dosearchsite.action?cql=siteSearch+~+%22macroName%3Agadget%22&queryString=macroName%3Agadget

Hope it helps.

[Edward Newman]

@Hua Soon SIM _Akeles_ This seems to return all gadgets and no easy way from this to see actual gadget name without going and editing each and every returned page. I see lots of other gadgets returned from this result. Another way to get to this is through

https://%confluence%/admin/pluginusage.action

and clicking on gadget entry

[Hua Soon SIM _Akeles_]

Hi @Edward Newman 

Thanks for pointing that out.

I see that https://%confluence%/admin/pluginusage.action will show

Clicking on the gadget link will redirect to https://akeles.jira.com/wiki/dosearchsite.action?cql=macro+%3D+%22gadget%22 which will show a search listing of the pages containing the gadget macro.

There is still a need to view every returned page. This is because they have the same macro name.

[Deleted user]

We use the Activity Stream gadget and replacing it with the macro - does not display as nicely.

[Traci Wilbanks]

Hi All,

It's Traci from the Confluence product team.

You can remove the existing gadgets if you'd like, but

"Any existing instances of these gadgets will still work." 

The deprecation, which will happen on May 14th, will only remove the ability to insert new instance of those gadgets.

(cc: @Samuel Valdez

[Tom Kiefer]

Any existing instances of these gadgets will still work.

Some behavior of existing Activity Stream gadget placements appears to be failing, such as filtering by username.

Is this expected at this point?

[Tom Kiefer]

The Activity stream gadget shows a list of recently changed content in your site. We recommend using the Recently Updated macro as an alternative in Confluence.

The Recently Updated macro seems to work functionally enough, but is not formatted or populated as well for a useful recent-activity display. 😔

More importantly (to me at the moment)...

The Recently Updated macro also doesn't seem to support Jira activity as the Activity stream gadget did. 😔 Any recommendations for this functionality (a filtered recent-Jira-activity view on a Confluence page)? 🥺

[Traci Wilbanks]

@Tom Kiefer Can you tell me more about the gadget placement failing?

I'm doing some digging to find out if there is a current way to accomplish what you want. I'll let you know what I find out.

[Tom Kiefer]

@Traci Wilbanks that I've specifically seen so far, just the example that I stated: an existing Activity Stream gadget that has been configured to filter only by username (and has been successfully doing so for a long time) suddenly stopped doing so roughly around January 2022. The gadget still displays an activity stream, but ignores the by-user filter; it shows everyone's everything. No changes were made to it at all.

This applies to two existing placements, one that loaded Confluence activity and one that loaded Jira activity. Both pointless as they are now.

[Traci Wilbanks]

Ahh, thanks for clarifying @Tom Kiefer. I'm with you now. Sounds like a bug, but I'm chatting with a product team to figure out next steps.

Unfortunately, I don't have a recommendation for a way to accomplish your goal. That gadget was the way to do it. I'm glad you shared how you are using it so that I can relay this to the teams who work on integration between products.

[Lennon Liao]

@Tom Kiefer Hi Tom, Can I confirm that the issue you are experience is that the Activity Stream gadget is configured to filter by username. However, the data simply ignores the username filter.

Do you still see the ability to filter by username (during the configuration step) or is the filter by username option completely missing from the configuration step?

[Tom Kiefer]

@Lennon Liao, the option/field is still in the gadget's "edit" UI and looks just as it did before (including being populated with a username value), it just no longer has any effect on the gadget's output: everyone's activity is now shown.

[Lennon Liao]

Got it thanks @Tom Kiefer . Sounds like a bug. Let me report it to our support team. We will let you know if we need additional information/screenshot from you. Thanks! 

[Tom Kiefer]

@Traci Wilbanks, @Lennon Liao,

Checking back in on this...

Any updates?

Is the Activity Stream gadget/macro effectively dead (per the original article)?

Don't know if I mentioned before, but we're using Confluence Data Center v7.13.2.

[Lennon Liao]

@Tom Kiefer Thanks for pointing out that you are using Data Center. I had thought you were using Cloud as this article talks about the deprecation of gadgets specific to Confluence Cloud. Data Center should not be affected by this announcement.

I have create a support ticket for the Data Center team to look into. Thanks for your patience!

https://support.atlassian.com/requests/CA-1822987/