Link to undefined, placeholder pages

[#1]

UPDATE!  As of September 2, 2020, this feature rolled out fully to all Confluence instances.  Check back here for updates about future improvements to this experience.

Finding flow and maintaining it gets exponentially harder with all the productivity challenges we face in a given day. We understand through your passionate comments on the Confluence Cloud ticket and in user research sessions, placeholder links was a key component is allowing you to stay in the flow of creating content, thus improving your productivity.

We learned that people are using these placeholders in a variety of ways - from using the placeholders to quickly create a set of pages to live under the current page to creating placeholder pages for their teammates to pick up and create later.

In the coming weeks, we are rolling out the ability to use keyboard shortcuts to create undefined, placeholder pages as you find the need to link out to a new page from the page you are on. By typing [Placeholder Page Name](), you create the placeholder.

You can click the placeholder immediately to create the new page, or the link can be clicked from the published page to create the page.

Since not everyone is a keyboard-focused user, we’ll add the ability to insert the placeholder from the toolbar in the new editor soon. We didn’t want to delay giving you ability to create without lifting your hands from the keyboard.

We want to continue to remove these small productivity hurdles that get in the way of content creation and collaboration so that you and your teams can focus on your work.

[Rudy Holtkamp]

Hi @Traci Wilbanks

It's good to see this feature coming back to Confluence. Could you explain why we need to add the brackets () behind it? It is not very intuitive, especially not for non-developers.

[Matt Reiner _K15t_]

This is great news @Traci Wilbanks! Thanks for improving the editor for the power users. 😀

[Kristi]

Super excited about this! Saves a lot of time when setting up new projects, etc.

[Rodrigo Barnes]

Thanks for restoring the wiki model of page creation. 

[Brian Pelton]

The additional parenthesis is not intuitive. Is there not a "/" slash command that could be used instead? I've found the /1 and /2 for headings so useful and would love to see /slash used instead of strange or complex syntax. If the syntax is simple such as [link] I could see that, but [link]() isn't obvious.

[Robert Lauriston]

I'm strongly against this unless it's disabled by default. One major advantage of Confluence over other wikis is that users don't create dead cross-reference links.

[Skip Sailors]

I am very glad to see support for an operation that has been part of the Wiki Way since Ward started it all.

[Jan Mueller]

Wow. Can’t believe you added it back into confluence. What was the reason for removing it again? 🤔 

Hopefully not being able to market it as a new feature.. 

[Branden Espinoza]

Just blank page or can you apply a  global or space template to the placeholder?

[Patrick O_Malley]

This is a small but hugely valuable change.

i had it in a previous wiki tool.

it will save us lots of time and help flow.

i do agree that the () seems superflous. 
could they be removed or something more natural to type could be used like [[ ]] if [ ] is being used..

thanks!

[Lynne Wagner]

Is this feature just in the Cloud version of Confluence?  Will it be available in Data Center?

[Traci Wilbanks]

Small yet mighty change!  

Regarding the syntax of the link, adding the empty parentheses after the brackets was a clear way to indicate that the text between the brackets is meant to be an undefined, placeholder link rather than just text between brackets.  Since there may be some good reason to format text this way in your existing pages, we didn’t want to systematically make all those instances placeholder links.

Our current keyboard shortcut for adding links is

so we didn't want to invent something new for this yet to be defined link.

If this method doesn't match your way of working, keep in mind that we'll be adding the ability to add these placeholders to the slash command list and to the insert menu in the toolbar. 

@Lynne Wagner - this rollout only applies to Confluence Cloud.  Here's how this feature works in Confluence Server. https://confluence.atlassian.com/doc/undefined-page-links-139580.html
I assume it works similarly in Data Center.

[Rob Noble]

Will the placeholder page be created as a child of the current page rather than just at the global level, or if not is there a way to specify that in the shortcut text?

[Rob Noble]

ps. "plans for tomorrow" is a terrible name for a wiki page ;-)

[Ilyas]

That would be great if we could add a placeholder link that will lead to creating a new page with that name from defined template.

For now I use "Create from Template" macro button, but after creating a page I have to replace the button with the link to this newly created page.

[Jeremy Hranko]

@Traci Wilbanks - I have to say that I came here to complain about the syntax, but the explanation that you posted yesterday shows me why it was necessary. Thanks for doing that. Looking forward to this rolling out (and the inclusion in the placeholders list.) 

[Traci Wilbanks]

@Rob Noble 

When the placeholder link is selected, the new page is created as a child of the page with the placeholder. 

However, the author has the chance to move the page before it is published or closed to create a draft. 

[Patrick O_Malley]

When is this being released? 

[Traci Wilbanks]

@Patrick O_Malley (and others who are interested)

The rollout of the feature will happen in the next few weeks.  If you watch the Atlassian Cloud blog, you'll get alerted when the weekly blog is published.  When the rollout starts, you'll see an entry for the feature.  Your site will get the feature after the description hits the blog.

[Kajsa]

@Traci Wilbanks According to the blog this should have been released last week, but it does nothing when I try it. As the blog doesn't show the square brackets I've tried with and without them, neither is working.
`[my new page name]()`, `my page name()`
Am I doing something wrong or is there an issue?

[abhishek_madhu]

@Kajsa,

This probably hasn't been released yet as it does not work for me either too as of now. 

But the team at Atlassian is excellent, and we can expect it anytime now.

Thanks.

[Traci Wilbanks]

@Kajsa and @abhishek_madhu - It's rare that a cloud feature is turned on for all sites at the same time.  Atlassian takes a more cautious approach when rolling out features; low complexity sites get a feature first, and it rolls out to other sites after that.  The blog announces when the rollout starts.  You are following the right pattern, Kajsa.  Hang on a bit.  You'll be getting it soon.  

[Sarah Moens]

Hi @Traci Wilbanks 

Thank you for the information. It however has been more than a month... I can understand the argument about rollouts in batches to different sites, but it's not convenient from a user point of view, to be notified about a feature and not having that feature available to check it out and play around with it.

I have occasionally been checking if the feature works yet, to come to the realization it still doesn't work. What time does a complete rollout normally take? It would be much easier from a user point of view to be notified about a feature that's really available. I think the placeholder-feature really is nice to have and look forward to implementing it in my existing templates.

Kind regards,

Sarah   

[Traci Wilbanks]

Hi @Sarah Moens 

Community posts are used to let you know that new feature is coming.  To find out when the actual rollout starts, you should check the https://confluence.atlassian.com/cloud/blog.

The rollout started the week of July 20th.  If you are curious about the ETA for your site or more specific information about the rollout process for Cloud features, your Confluence admin can contact Atlassian Support for more information.  

Cheers!
Traci

[Patrick O_Malley]

hi @Traci Wilbanks 
I think Sarah has a good point. 

I think Sarah's point is that she is not notified. So she keeps checking in confluence if the feature exists - there is no notification. Me too. Are we supposed to check the blog page every day? 

If someone were to also post here that this was fully rolled out globally, we would get an email if we had previously posted on this page. Would that be so hard to do?

thanks,

patrick