Change to your content is in your hands

[Chris Rehberg]

I've said it before and I'll say it again (even though Atlassian is deaf) - you really need to split the NUE (new, unimproved editor, as Zod described it) from the Classic and offer them as two products that are not interchangeable.

You want Kindy Konfluence? Sign up to NUE.

You want a documentation tool? Use Classic.

You cannot port content from one to the other, so choose your weapon wisely. Each has its own stats to guide you in your choice:

Classic = +100 kick-ass

NUE = +100 frustration

Time to pick a path, people of Confluence...

[Jeanne Howe]

Reposting this so people know it is out there - please vote - 

Option to have the older template selection instead of the in-editor template selection

https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/CONFCLOUD-71078 

It is a poorly written "suggestion" but if you look at the Suggested Behavior, it would allow the Admin to set a default editor for everyone.

[spaks]

@Tiffany- I filled out the form som edays ago. COuld you provide an info about the standard reaction time to figure out if the request was lost or is in the pipeline.

Thks a lot and kind regards

Volker

[Bruno De Zwaef]

People,

Despite the 7 pages of frustration, I am sometimes surprised by the low votes count on the reported New Editor (yuk!) bugs. I sometimes wonder if everyone is aware of the full scope of sh*t heading our way with the this editor.

So here's a list of issues in the new editor (I stop using capitals, because it doesn't deserve them) that I've been able to gather:

Issue	Summary	Topic
CONFCLOUD-67648	Additional options for page layouts	Page Layout
CONFCLOUD-68780	Making page full-width does not render page as full-width	Page Layout
CONFCLOUD-67748	Custom table width	Table Layout
CONFCLOUD-69374	Multiple images in one line	Images
CONFCLOUD-67554	Resize image by pixel on new editor	Images
CONFCLOUD-68220	Image Effects (Borders, Taped Edges)	Images
CONFCLOUD-56515	Companion App only work by going to the list of page attachments	Office Files

And it's not just the new editor, it's the whole cloud environment - also this one is bugging me a lot:

Issue	Summary	Impact to consider
CONFCLOUD-65583	Office File issue with New Confluence Editor	No Preview option on MS Office files and PDFs that were added using the old editor No option to edit the MS Office files added using the new editor

The fact many of them are categorized as "suggestion" and not "bug" says a lot how serious Atlassian is taking this up.

Some of them that are categorized as bug are prioritized "long term backlog" e.g. CONFCLOUD-68780 (discussed frequently, but has only one vote????!!!!)

I call upon all of you to vote on these bugs and if you find more issues to share them here in the group so we can all vote on those - because that is how it works (no ticket = no attention) unfortunately.

I predict the new editor will stick and the legacy editor will fade out some day, simply because the back-end data structure is incompatible. Sometimes to move forward you have to do these things, but Atlassian is making it a text book example of HOW NOT to do it: releasing a far far inferior product to replace a damned nice editor + NO PROGRESS, NO COMMUNICATION on any of the reported bugs.

Some of these issues have been reported for YEARS - WTF Atlassian WAKE UP.

Instead I've been crying in a corner with every great new release accompanied by propaganda emails packed with exciting stuff NOBODY was waiting for.

Well... back to my corner for now.

[Susanne Schnitzer]

Bruno, thanks for this list.

I checked all issues and for most of them I had voted looong time ago...

Too bad, no reaction from Atlassian so far.

Honestly, we stopped paying attention to reported bugs and user requirements to the new editor. Because we will keep on using the legacy editor as long as we can and already keep our eyes open for alternatives.

I used to be real fan of Confluence since 2010 and also recommended it to our customers - but they've lost my trust and confidence in the past two years. We need a stable and reliable tool for our high-level technical documentation. We do not need emojis and hundreds of colors. We need control over image size and one single source of truth for currently valid images, reasonable embedding (and editing) of Word and Excel files, stable table functionality and many more professional features. At least we deserve the attention and respect of the so called "support" and "product management".

[Mads]

Nice work, Bruno, but there are loads more. Lots of issues with tables. Slow, slow editing if you have many macros. You can not make a link to an attachment, only a preview (wtf -- hyperlinks are like the most basic building blocks of the web), and so on, and so on. (There are issues for all of this).

Most of them are in "gathering interest" or some other silly stuff like that. It seriously hurts.

Check this list for the full disclousere (which is appreciated, btw, thanks Atlassian): https://jira.atlassian.com/issues/?jql=project%20%3D%20CONFCLOUD%20AND%20component%20%3D%20%22Page%20-%20Fabric%20Editor%22%20ORDER%20BY%20status%20DESC

[Mads]

Even more striking, check by vote count: https://jira.atlassian.com/issues/?jql=project%20%3D%20CONFCLOUD%20AND%20component%20%3D%20%22Page%20-%20Fabric%20Editor%22%20and%20status%20!%3D%20Closed%20ORDER%20BY%20votes%20DESC%2C%20status%20DESC

And, check against status. It truly is depressing to see an issue with 602 votes being "Under consideration".

Example: This issue, about being able to link to an attachment as a link: https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/CONFCLOUD-65302

Created almost four years ago, set to "In Progress" january 2020, 20 freaking months ago. 20!!!

What on earth is going on, Atlassian?

[Chris Rehberg]

@Mads- that one ticket, for being able to use a text link to attachments - yes, has been created 4 years ago, but that one ticket also relates to 9 other tickets (duplicates, related, etc) and has 151 comments!

Can you imagine???

That one ticket is for bog-standard HTML functionality to support the anchor tag to download a file!

[Mads]

@Chris RehbergI can hardly imagine it. I am not sure I would believe it, if I couldn't see it with my own eyes. It is flabbergasting.

[Aleksandr Paren]

Heh, hi all. It seems that post has a lot of angry comments about the new editor. I am also the user who in our company needs to use legacy because it is more comfortable for the technical documentation.

I can disappoint all that all messages and all tasks created in Jira about migrating functionality from the old editor will be ignored by Atlassian. It is a checked fact.

Example:

Look at this task which has many votes https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/CONFCLOUD-68501

I found one internal Atlassian employee at the beginning of the year and has the conversation. Because for us task very important. And do you know the answer? Votes in the tasks mean nothing, and these votes, not the main priority that it task will be fixed. Also, the situation was the same: "Yes we will think with our team about it", but when after 1 month I write him the answer was: "We are not planning to do it". That's all you need to know about Atlassian user loyalty. Yes, Jonno, isn't it?

Also, for the last year, we had three issues that damaged the current functionality in the old editor. Always when DEV teams implement some new fixes they do the damages to the legacy. For example, our company has more than 1000 pages in the legacy editor with technical documentation. And sometimes users came into public space and saw that content is not good-looking. Finally it was Atlassian bugs. Also, when we contacted with the support, they started again about their internal rules, bla bla bla. Only that my top management when saw this situation and we noticed all CEOs requests and other Atlassian staff that our company will go to the court and requests the penalties they started to work, and fix the issues. This is a very sad situation that the company which was with one of the best product go down their quality.

Also, I can repeat, that most of the votes and tasks for migrating from legacy to the new editor will never be implemented.

[Peter Kidson]

Yes the whole situation is very difficult to understand - as far as table-handling is concerned. 

The old editor is professional grade (even though it has been badly downgraded over the years - no nested tables,  no text alongside tables, etc etc).  But the new editor seems to be designed for small children - very limited and very clumsy;  simply not fit for professional use.   Apparently they think that is where their market lies.  Either that or one of the bosses' school kids were given the project for the holidays.

The best answer would be to keep them both going and in development, and let the Admin decide what the default is.  That way both adult and child users would be happy.

[r_karaivanov]

I think I've seen this several times.

A company starts a new product. Initially one developer works on it, then a second one, and so on. The product gets popular, customers like it, and provide a lot feedback. Company accepts feedback, improves the product, it gets more popular. This goes on for several years, the customers are happy, the company is also happy.

Then something in the company changes. New product or development leads come and say something like 'Why we are spending $$$$ for creating and supporting this product with ancient technology A? We can do the same with new shiny technology B, and it would cost us only $$. New is always better!' So, those leads sell the idea to company' management. The original product is abandoned, and a new version is created with technology B.

Here is the trick. The people at the company who made this decision usually do not use their own product. Or they use only 10% of its features. For them, the rest is meaningless, they've never seen or learned why such features were added to the product. So, they do not care much about it - as long as the new version provides what they used so far, they are happy.

Then the customers find that the new version lacks half the features of the original, and also works twice slowly. They rightfully start complaining. Sometimes the company listens, other it doesn't.

I suppose something like this happens at Atlassian. Of course, I might be wrong. What I'm sure is that all my peers would get the 'stay away from Confluence' recommendation from me.

[David Allyn]

@r_karaivanov100% yes!  You nailed it.

I've used Confluence since 2016, and fell in love with it's ability to support my training pages that I filled with robust how-to docs, step-by-step pages, links, and videos.  I developed a special branding so people could immediately know it was me.  My trainees were happy with Confluence, I was happy with Confluence, and my bosses were happy with Confluence.

I began using Jira and again fell in love with they way every individual issue can be customized (with complex information or super simple information) for the moment. Stakeholders could directly contribute and communicate with me using Jira.  I've built many trackers in my life in all different tech - and Jira beat all of them.  My stakeholders were happy with Jira, I was happy with Jira, and my bosses were happy with Jira.

Then 2 years ago or so, they began to make odd, weird changes for literally no apparent reason. I'll spare you the multiple paragraph laundry list that I just deleted. Let's just say - no sane user would ever request the changes they made -- they're just making sh** up out of thin air.  And in the process taking the product *back* 25 years.  (back then there *were literally* only 16 colors available)

Atlassian uses a forced adoption model where they roll out a feature without notice, tell you that you can always use the old version, then slowly make it harder to use the old version.  All the while giving you excuses as to why you can't do what you used to do. 

Eventually using the old version is so hard you just give up.  When you formally request for the functionality to go back - it becomes a "feature request" that needs to be up voted by the community - which never seems to get enough votes for some reason.

It's a bit like being in the middle of a company merger - they say "Nothing will change" until everything changes.  Then they start making changes without employee input making everyone's life living hell for no reason.  If you don't like it, you can always "Talk to HR" where it's just conflict resolution management with the assumption you are not a team player.

Atlassian is not interested in what the users want, and it's sad when the users have to rise up against the company.... or just leave. </rant>

[jb]

@Tiffany  I seem stuck and unable to find a way to contact support in order to enable the editor for my personal (free) cloud sites.  I also have multiple licensed versions of the product both server and data center for work.  I'm trying to assess if there is a path to migrate to cloud and testing on my personal sites I recently registered.  Using the "new" editor on cloud is untenable for me.  Please advise on how I can the old editor enabled for my cloud instances.  Thank you. 

[Chris Rehberg]

@jb- workaround = if you have one page that was created with the old editor, you can create a copy of that page and the copy will also use the old editor.

If your workspace has no such page, I'm not sure whether you might be able to move a page from another space into the space in question - but that's what I'd recommending trying to do.

[Rodney Hughes]

Hey folks ... 

Atlassian are promoting the benefits of CLOUD on LinkedIn .. maybe we all have it wrong??

I have been bold enough to comment.

Perhaps you'll join me.

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/atlassian_learn-whats-different-activity-6830968476065239041-xwi-

[Bruno De Zwaef]

I've put in my 2 cents... off course :)

[Peter Kidson]

Latest : in an attempt to make the ridiculous editing of the tables in the new editor look better, they have now started sabotaging the old editor to bring the quality down to the same pathetic level as the new one.  Table width is now gone.

Jesus wept.

[Bruno De Zwaef]

@Tiffany please, kindly explain to us why tables in the legacy editor have gone full width?

This is in conflict with your very own statement on page 1 of this post:

The legacy editor isn’t going anywhere

We know that many of you are concerned about all the changes and what they may mean for the future of the legacy editor. We have no plans to end-of-life it in the foreseeable future, and if and when we do, we’ll make sure to explicitly communicate it well in advance.

As soon as we dare to touch tables in legacy editor pages the tables become full width, so the behavior has changed.

We now have NO fallback anymore. You have taken away the very last argument (despite all the crap you poor over us with the new editor) to still keep using Confluence. I cannot defend this to my management and surely not to my team of users.

Please @Tiffany you tell me what to say to my team.

[Deleted user]

Also when we create a page in new editor using the Legacy Editor template, it doesn't have the option to hide the table borders, or leaves no option to format the table in detail. This was possible in original old editor, now its not t=n thats annoying.

[Jawann]

It's even worse than @Bruno De Zwaef said. In addition, data that is left-justified in the first column and right-justified in the last column is now crammed up against the cell border, instead of being padded like every other cell. Screenshot below showing the issue.

It looks like the dumpster fire of the new/preschool editor is creeping into our beloved legacy/professional editor.

[Rodney Hughes]

Don't forget to add your comments on their LinkedIn post

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/atlassian_learn-whats-different-activity-6830968476065239041-xwi-

[Aleksandr Paren]

@Jawann @Bruno De Zwaef after when I forward words from my management that we will go to the court they fixed that with the tables. Only strong words and phrases helps to activate support

https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/CONFCLOUD-72678

Anyway we now think how to create official claim and go to the officials. For the last year we had 3 isdues which broke our docs.

Becausr the main thing which needs to care Atlassian and I reminded them during the call that their product is not opensource and we are paying not cheap price and for us needs thay current functionality has to work.

[Rodney Hughes]

@Aleksandr Paren 

Strong words and perhaps "public embarrassment" ... 

If you feel strongly you can add a comment here: 

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/atlassian_learn-whats-different-activity-6830968476065239041-xwi-

[Bruno De Zwaef]

How about we organize a crowd fundraising - bring to market a SERVER based collaboration platform called "Done-fluence". Atlassian could not sue us because they've ditched the product 😁

On top of that, we'd charge half the prices... and still get rich in 1 year (okay, maybe 2).