Convert your old pages to the new editor

[#1]

Hey Community 👋,

Following the recent release of the new editor, we will be releasing the ability for users to convert existing pages from the legacy editor to the new editor. We’ve been responding to the user pain from split-brain (having two editors in the same instance), and have been working on providing ways to create one unified editing experience through page conversions. This feature will begin rolling out in a few weeks.

⭐️Get this feature first!

If you'd like to be in the initial cohort to receive this experience, please fill out this form with your email and instance name. If you have seen this article after Feb. 24, you can still fill out this form and we will enable this feature on your instance on a rolling basis.

This feature will allow users to convert a page from the legacy editor to the new editor on a page-by-page basis. In addition to converting the page, this feature consists of a few main functionalities.

Preview page conversion

See the page in its converted state prior to actually converting the page. The modal will also notify you of the page’s eligibility.

Status of page eligibility

View the page’s content eligibility status in the footer as well as the modal.

• 100% eligible: content can be converted to the new editor with no data loss

• Ineligible/unsupported content: some elements are not supported in the new editor

• Collaborative editing: someone is actively working on this page

View unsupported content

Unsupported content will be highlighted in a yellow warning panel with a preview to what part of the content is unsupported (e.g., nested body macros). Since the remainder of the content is eligible, this allows the page to be converted with a warning consisting of a preview to the ineligible content.

Revert a converted page anytime!

If the user is not satisfied with the migration experience, they will have the ability to revert the migration to the legacy editor by reverting to the previous version.

[Andy - PTC Redundant]

This is a scary one... unsupported content!? YIKES!

But from an experimental perspective this seems like fun.

To quote Jake Peralta: “Rip off the bandaid and let the scab bleed!!”

let’s do this! 🤩🤘

[Jeremiah Purk]

This is dangerous to some extent. But. It does have a useful tool that allows it to easily revert back to its original editor.

[Arpit Sharma]

@Tiffany Earlier there was a feature which let the user leave a comment of the changes that he/she made to the page. Is that feature removed from the new editor? If not, how would I go about letting the people know what changes have I made when publishing the new version of the page.

[Sri Kumar]

Hi @Tiffany ,

Thanks for the great share. Correct me if I am wrong in the new Editor we will not be able to add the Links to the Image and there is a feature request for the same: Cannot add link to image in Fabric Editor.

I am curious is this will be shown as a Warning when trying to upgrade to the new editor? 

-Sri

[Darryl St_ Pierre]

I really like that this is being made available in advance, but I will not be seeking early adoption for my organization.

Hoping that we will soon see the ability to create Templates with the new editor. I won't be actively migrating anything until that's available.

Darryl

[Nicole]

Hi @Tiffany: I'm trying to avoid the new editor at all costs. The user pain I'm seeing is not from split-brain, but from the features Atlassian is stripping out of the product.

Will the basic features of image resizing by pixel and the ability to add alt tags (which is a legal issue for your customers) be available in the new editor soon?

[Bob Sovers]

Is there a feature to "migrate my NEW content back to the OLD editor" ???

[Tom Crowley]

@Arpit Sharma That feature has been removed. See the ticket here: https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/CONFCLOUD-65695

The official line is: "We'll revisit this suggestion once we get through some of the more burning areas of feature gap feedback we've been getting for the new editor."

That's right, migrating your pages to the new editor exposes them to burning areas of feature gaps. 

[JP]

I'm with @Bob Sovers

Until the new editor crawls back up to the level of functionality we used to have with the old editor, I want NOTHING to do with any conversion to the new editor.  I have a blank old-editor page and when I need a new page, I copy the blank page.

[Tom Crowley]

@JP Our site was switched over so everything auto-converts to the new editor if it's compatible. This includes blank pages. I don't know whether you're the admin or not of your site, but if the new editor gets pushed to your site, blank pages might get rolled up and converted.

It might be worth creating an incompatible page and saving it somewhere just in case. I've got a two-item list with a note panel nested between steps 1 and 2.

[Mick F]

How do you access this migration/preview feature?

[RPT Admin]

@Tom Crowley Great tip thank you. Done this by nesting two expand macros inside each other and adding a lorem ipsum macro. 

[Tom Crowley]

Over on ticket 65695, Avi left the following comment that might be of interest to some of you. If you no longer have the legacy template, Support can re-enable it for you. Should mean you no longer have to copy old pages to use the old editor.

Hi all,

Thanks for all the feedback on this ticket. Given the amount of requests we've started to explore what a potential quick win may look like to re-introduce this. That being said, we still can't guarantee a time frame for this - we will make sure to update this ticket as we know more on our end.

In the meantime, if you have the legacy template available - which most of you should have - you can keep using that to create new pages and still keep using this feature. If you don't have that template, you can reach out to support and we'll be happy to enable it for you.

Thanks,

Avinoam

[Tom Crowley]

@RPT Admin The tip I just left might be even better! ;)

[John Varela]

Will this support converting templates from old to new?

[Tiffany]

@John Varela this will not cover converting templates. This feature will focus on existing pages created in the old editor. 

[Tiffany]

@Mick F: You can fill out the form above in the article to get the feature first.

@Arpit Sharma Though we do not have the functionality to add a link to an image on the new editor, the links on existing images will be preserved after converting the page.

@Nicole We've definitely heard a lot of feedback on this and have taken this into consideration in our coming improvements. Especially for alt text, this is something the team, as well as broader Atlassian, is actively working on resolving.

[Andrew Culver]

Will this be coming to Confluence Server too?

[Hostvisors]

Will there be more formats for the page available, in terms of columns?

[Tiffany]

@Andrew Culver this feature will not be available on Server.

@Hostvisors could you elaborate on what you mean by this? The team is currently working on improving table features.

[Cassandra Myer]

This whole "unsupported content" is a big reason why we are reviewing using Confluence AT ALL. Emoji's work but other necessary content is no longer supported??? Is this a toy or a business application? Apparently Atlassian thinks Confluence is a low-level product for blogs and emojis. Yeah, I am not happy. 

@John Varela If you are like us, you will find that current templates that you are using will have content that is not supported. 

[Ben Shuker]

I'd like the opposite, to convert new editor pages to old since the new editor is lacking in features and customisation options.

The fact that I can't choose an alignment for inserted images makes this new editor a massive downgrade.

[Panos Kouvelis]

At last! Split-brain headaches indeed!!!

Please do this, we need this so much...

[Dmitry Muzhikov]

Is there a way not to make tables spanning over the whole page like it was in the old one? Who always needs tables automatically adjusting by the width of the screen?