Internal links in Confluence Cloud

[Sven Erik Johansson]

We are using Confluence Cloud to document a product to the public. Some of the pages are imported from Confluence Server and some are made new in Confluence Cloud. The new editor is used when creating new pages and the the legacy editor is used for imported pages.

Our version strategy is to work on a master version an then publish it to the public using “Copy space” add-on with a new space key. Internal links are changed to the new space key, but hrefs are not. Se description below.

When I copy an URL address for a confluence page from the address bar and paste it in the new editor it becomes an internal link. Using View Storage Format:

<ac:link ac:card-appearance="inline"><ri:page ri:space-key="ermaster" ri:content-title="M1 Resept" ri:version-at-save="1" /><ac:link-body>M1 Resept</ac:link-body></ac:link>

The title of the link is resolved asynchronously with object resolver. So far so god. Problem is that object resolver does not work for anonymous user. The full path is shown. I have tried the security setting “Anonymous Access to Remote API” but with no effect.

To fix this and also the slight delay for the object resolver to do its magic, I add a title to the internal link. Then it becomes an href:

<a href="https://e-resept.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/ermaster/pages/34383303/M1+Resept">M1 Resept</a> .. and the hrefs are not translated to the new space key when using Copy space.

I think this is unpredictable of the new editor and I have not found any documentation of this “feature”. We need control over internal/external links. For the public space I don’t want to be dependent on the object resolver since it takes a litle while on slow nets to resolve the title.

I have a Catch 22 scenario here: I cannot use the internal links with Object resolver because it does not work for anonymous users on the published space and I cannot add a title because it then becomes an external link that will link to the master space that is not changed when the space is copied.

The workaround is to copy an imported page that uses the old editor for new pages with links. In the old editor you have full control over internal/external links.

What is the intended behaviour for internal/external links in Confluence Cloud with the new editor?

[Sven Erik Johansson · Accepted solution]

I found a new workaround.

When you paste the link into the editor you should remove the server name.

The URL is : https://e-resept.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/ermaster/pages/34383303

In the edior you remove the server adress: /wiki/spaces/ermaster/pages/34383303

Then you can add any displaytext you want and the link stays an internal link.

When using copy space tree to copy to another space it will link to the linked page in the target space.

[sejo]

I do wonder why this issue is not prioritized higher or that not more people have reported it?

We simply want to use Confluence cloud for our open documentation without the need to log in.  Are we the only one in the whole wide world that uses Confluence this way?  If so maybe we should reconsider...

[sejo]

I got a reply from atlassian about the Link Object Resolver for anonymous users.  See: https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/CONFCLOUD-68023 but with a "Long term backlog" status :-(

No explaination yet to why internal links (ac:link) becomes extrenal (href) when display text is added. 

[ca phe fin]

Thank yoy very much

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