NEW! Page properties report visual update

[#1]

Hi Community,

David from the Confluence Cloud team here. We're super excited to share a long-awaited update to the Page properties report macro.

Previously, when a Page properties report was inserted on a page created using the new editor, its contents would render as if in the legacy editor. This led to inconsistencies with the source content, and an overall less helpful, outdated appearance.

With our changes, the Page properties report now renders everything consistently with the modernized design patterns of the new editor. Check it out! 

As a bonus, we've also made the macro fully WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get). Previously, you could not interact with the Page properties report while editing. Now, you can click through the pagination controls, click on links, view mention cards, and more, all while editing.

[Shawn Doyle - ReleaseTEAM]

Very nice update!

[Ammar Ahmed Butt]

Finally 😍

[Micheal Planck]

This is worse. The same information takes three times as much space.

But more than that, I didn't ask for a change. How am I supposed to build a consistent set of reports if Atlassian is going to change what things look like behind my back?

Is there any way to keep the old layout?

Also, it doesn't work. I have two reports on the same page with different columns displayed, and it confuses their contents. I've opened a bug report.

[Jimi Wikman]

@Micheal Planckthe images are a bit confusing, but it is to display the capabilities rather than comparing between versions. Just change the presentation of links to be inline rather than showing the card, and it should look the same.

In cloud, you don't choose what features you get. It is a SaaS solution, so all you can do is delay the rollout. This is the same in Data Center, but the cadence is longer.

Would you mind adding a screenshot of what problems you have? It would be interesting to see what you are facing, should it appear for others?

[Micheal Planck]

Yesterday:

Today:

[K]

Hi, thank you for the update - I really like that it is now possible to follow the links in the editing mode. Unfortunately, I am facing the same issue Michael is. The information in the different reports on our page is all mixed up and the reports are somehow disregarding the set page properties IDs. @Micheal Planck are you happy to share the bug report so I can vote for it? Thank you!

[Micheal Planck]

Hi K,

I'm not sure there is a bug report? I just have a support ticket. JST-977617, if that helps. I'm a little fuzzy on how to navigate Atlassian's vast website.

They paused the roll-out of the new build to my site, and now everything works again.

[John Fenger]

Not sure if this is Related by as of today (maybe friday) all of our page property reports that have text in them no longer wrap text but show scroll bars.   

This is a MAJOR problem for us as all of our weekly reporting meetings run off these reports and now its a super frustrating and sort of makes this process un usable since 1 person is presenting and other people are reading their updates.   

Please Please Please say this is not intentional. this is a crushing blow to so many parts of our compnay that have recently switched to confluence for project reporting.  I mean this is crushing since i promoted this and now everyone is like WTF is this mess.   

[Micheal Planck]

Get Atlassian to pause the rollout to your site. That will fix it for a time.

The other solution is Stiltsoft's Table filter and charts for Confluence. Costs more money but actually does what you want (with a few minor Atlassian bugs involved, of course). I am currently trying to convince management to spring for it, rather than relying on Atlassian's tender mercies.

[Johannes Mattes]

That's a pretty big problem for us. Since we display longer text passages via the page properties report macro. The display of longer texts is now no longer usable. Is there already a bug report open?

[John Fenger]

@Johannes Mattes  Your UI looks even worse than mine does. what on earth is going on with this feature. 

[Jenny Gallagher]

PLEASE roll this back or allow us to opt out of this change. I use these tables throughout my site for lots of different purposes, most of which use longer form content, and this change has completely destroyed most of the functions of my site that relies on these tables, or made them so cumbersome to use. Not one page has been improved by it.

Here are a few examples from bad to worse:

As you can see, forcing the uniform row size rather than allowing text wrapping is so inefficient and clunky for my end users. 

Again, I have so many pages that rely on this macro. The above are just a few examples. I use them for purposes both conventional and outside the box. In the second and third examples, I pair the Page Properties macro with the HTML macro to create libraries for editable templates for operational teams to use in different circumstances. These libraries are now essentially unusable after this update because of all the clunky back and forth side scrolling it takes. PLEASE revert this.

Edit: I also just noticed that sorting by clicking on the column heading now sorts blank entries over non-blank entries alphabetically. This is another unasked for change that has worsened the functionality of my glossaries, which previously allowed users to sort alphabetically by term and acronym. Now terms without acronyms are organized at the top when attempting to sort by acronym:

[Chuck Warren]

+100 - Very unpleasant surprise.  Scroll bar hell has been unleashed.

[Andrew Potts]

Losing the Word Wrap on the cells has made the Page Properties report unreadable for some of our scenarios. Please can you revert it back, or make it a configuration option to enable/disable Word Wrap?

[Johannes Mattes]

A suitable bug report is now open: https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/CONFCLOUD-77982

[John Fenger]

The other rather frustrating feature in this release is that now Pagination always shows on the bottom of all page property reports (PPR)

Most of our reporting pages will have between 3 and 10 Page property reports on them this extra space and clutter on the page is an annoyance esp since we never ever have pagination.   At some point please clean this up. 

  

And lastly. We always put PPRs into tables since if not they seem rather floating and when we have a bunch on the page we were adding a background color to the cell to Frame in the PPR.  Now cell background colors also fill the background of the PPRs.  This is more a bummer, and understandable you would not have planned for.  Would be far nicer if PPRs would actually pick up the PP cell color from the source page!  And not the page they are placed into.  

  

But just to be clear on priority these are annoying, and nice to have.  This scroll bar thing is just... just brutal https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/CONFCLOUD-77982 Please please fix that!

[David Michelson]

Hi all,

David from the Confluence team here. Thank you very much for your detailed feedback. We are currently working on the text wrapping issue and will share updates as they come! You can follow the public ticket here https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/CONFCLOUD-77982. 

[Alyssa Fraser]

Hoping this gets fixed ASAP as I rely on these reports to be front facing to stakeholders

[Logi Helgu]

I thought I was going mad when I noticed the < 1 > pagination on all my PPR.

I guess I'll have to file another bug for that...I'll share a link when that get's through the support :D

I love that PPR are getting some love but this is really sad since the PP/R is one of the best features of C and just rolling out changes without getting them through some experts that use the feature just makes everyone look bad (me as a huge advocate for PPR and recommending that and C for changing things around without asking (or enabling opt-in while debugging)).

[Logi Helgu]

Wow...the 77982 has been closed...that's awesome that this is getting attention right away...I'm amazed...now let's see how quickly we get the pagination fixed... I feel like I won the lottery to see a ticket quickly resolved...I can't remember seeing that in the last 20 years <3

[Micheal Planck]

So let's see if they fix multiple reports per page from the same page properties. Or if they just mark the whole thing as good because they fixed one bug...

[Logi Helgu]

@Micheal Planck I would raise another bug, TBH I think they are going to stick with the pagination (even though it "breaks" the documentation of how it works ;)

[Logi Helgu]

Just saw that there are no visual indicators anymore on PP (unless you happen to hover it), and that can get really confusing...fast...filed a support ticket and hopefully that will be resolved quickly.

[Logi Helgu]

Pagination has been restored and now is not shown unless the results exceed one "page" :)

Loving he fast response times <3 

[Jenny Gallagher]

I appreciate all the quick fixes and updates. However, the PPR sorting still sorts blank fields over the information in non-blank fields, as discussed and shown in the edit at the bottom of this comment. In its prior iteration, blank fields were sorted to the bottom in both ascending and descending A-Z. This allowed end users to see the applicable entries first when clicking on the columns to sort. Now it sorts blank fields first, so they have to scroll through dozens of non-applicable entries to get to applicable ones when sorted A-Z.