How to create simple custom macros in Confluence Cloud
Back in 2014, I made a presentation at Atlassian Summit that I hoped would challenge people's assumptions that Confluence Cloud was limited and inflexible as a solution. In it, I talk about core Confluence features (templates, macros, permissions, and space architecture) and also the possibilities of Atlassian Connect.
Some details and features have changed since then, but for the most part, the concepts in the presentation are still valid. In particular, you can still use the Atlassian Connect framework to make simple custom macros, and you don't need to be a professional programmer either.
I thought it might be worthwhile re-sharing this again.
But I'm not a developer or programmer, how could I use Atlassian Connect?
For a simple, static content macro that doesn't have any logic or configuration required (i.e. reusable blocks of content) you only need these three things:
- Admin access to your Confluence Cloud instance
- Access to web hosting that supports HTTPS - e.g. Amazon S3 hosting is good enough https://aws.amazon.com/s3/
- Your custom macro code, made up of three files:
- A special configuration file ("atlassian-connect.json")
- A file that contains your content (e.g. "macro.xml" in the example below)
- An image or icon to represent your macro (e.g. "icon.png" in the example below)
Those 3 files are uploaded to your hosting then installed into your Confluence Cloud instance.
The file that contains your content will be a snippet of HTML / Storage Format text. An easy way to create your content snippet is to draft it on a Confluence page, then use the view storage format tool. E.g. this content
<p>Hello, world!</p><ac:structured-macro ac:name="info" ac:schema-version="1" ac:macro-id="b1298625-64bf-42e8-b3bc-e3489526e9bc"><ac:rich-text-body>
<p>This is an info panel</p></ac:rich-text-body></ac:structured-macro>
An atlassian-connect.json template
You don't need to really know much about the atlassian-connect.json file, although there are lots of different configuration options if you want to learn more about it.
Here is a template you can use – I have added comments where you need to make changes to this base configuration. Once you have made you changes, you can check that your atlassian-connect.json is right using this online validation tool created by Atlassian, which is hosted at https://atlassian-connect-validator.herokuapp.com/validate
If you want to make this a block rather than inline macro, change the outputType parameter to "block".
{
"key": "A unique key for your – e.g. com-yourdomain-anameforyourmacro",
"name": "A human friendly name for your of macro",
"description": "Describe your macro – e.g. Demo add-on for the Atlassian Summit 2014.",
"baseUrl": "This is the URL where you macro code is hosted - e.g. https://mymacros3domain.s3.amazonaws.com/",
"vendor": {
"name": "Your organisation’s name",
"url": "Your organisation’s URL e.g. http://yourdomain.com"
},
"authentication": {
"type": "none"
},
"modules": {
"staticContentMacros": [
{
"url": "/macro.xml",
"outputType": "inline",
"icon": {
"width": 80,
"height": 80,
"url": "/icon.png"
},
"key": "A unique key for your macro – e.g. static-macro-homepage",
"name": {
"value": "The name of your macro"
}
}
]
}
}How do I install and test my macro?
Initially, you can install directly by using development mode in Confluence Cloud.
However, you can then deploy as a private app via the marketplace.
You can also request a free development instance of Confluence Cloud, so you can test separately before making it available to your users.
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James Dellow
About this author
Director
Chief Technology Solutions
Sydney/Wollongong, Australia
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