Smart Links, a richer way to hyperlink

[#1]

(Updated October, 2020) 

Hi Community!

I’m Jonno, a Product Manager for the editor in our cloud products. I’m here to announce an exciting editor improvement we’ve been working on called Smart Links.

Smart Links reveal important context about links within a Confluence page (or Jira issue) without leaving that page. View pertinent link information with just a couple of clicks. We currently provide Smart Link views for the following URLs:

• Confluence

• Jira

• Jira Roadmaps
• Dropbox

• Box

• Google Drive

• Microsoft OneDrive

• Asana

• Github

• Bitbucket
• Gitlab
• Figma
• Adobe XD
• Miro
• Zeplin
• Invision

We have a whole host of new ones that’ll join the party just around the corner.

There are a few ways to display links going forward, so let me break it down for you.

Smart Links inline view

Hyperlink…but with style! The Smart Links inline view makes your links “pop” on the page. You’ll see the logo from the source of that link, so you quickly have more information about the type of content. When inserting a link to other Atlassian products, you’ll get even more details, like the status of a Jira ticket.

You may have already seen this update in your Confluence site as it rolled out back in 2019. Simply copy and paste the URL directly onto the page, and it will automatically be converted to an inline link. You can also type /link on the page or select the macro from the insert menu in the editor toolbar.

Smart Links card view

If you thought inline view was cool, just wait. There’s more! Smart Links card view provides even richer detail. You can see a small preview of the content, plus additional information about it. You’ll also start to see actions added to cards over time. Dropbox links already enable you to open a full embedded preview of your file as well as download it, without ever leaving your Confluence page.

Card view is currently rolling out. If you have not seen it already, it should be coming to your site within the next few weeks.

To change a Smart Link from an inline view to a card view, just use the view switcher in the floating toolbar below the Smart Link.

Smart Link embeds

What if you never have to break the flow of work (or leave a Confluence page) to interact with content that lives outside of Confluence? Well, Smart Link embed views help you with that!

Read and edit a Google Drive document, manipulate your Figma file and more, all within a Confluence page. Now that’s efficiency!

For more detail on how Smart Links works, check out our support documentation. Let us know what you think below!

[Sven Schatter _Lively Apps_]

Hey @Jonno Katahanas, that looks awesome! Is there a chance that this will be opened up for Marketplace Partners at some point so that we can implement Smart Links/Cards ourselves for other services/domains that we think might be missing? :)

Cheers,
Sven

[James Dellow]

+1 on @Sven Schatter _Lively Apps_ 's suggestion!

[Jonno Katahanas]

Hey @Sven Schatter _Lively Apps_ and @James Dellow! 

Opening Smart Links up for third-parties to build is definitely our plan. We've built Smart Links on Forge intentionally so that we can open up to third-parties in the future. We don't have a concrete timeline for when this will happen but we are hoping we'll have something for you by early 2021 (calendar year, not financial). We'll be sure to update our Marketplace Partners when we know more.

If you ever want to chat about the editor's extensibility plans, including Smart Links, feel free to drop a time in to chat here - https://calendly.com/jkatahanas/editor-extensibility

Cheers,

Jonno 

[Sven Schatter _Lively Apps_]

Thanks @Jonno Katahanas that sounds great! Especially nice to hear that you are using Forge internally for things like these, gives me a lot more trust in the platform personally. And to everyone who hasn't chatted with Jonno before, can definitely recommend! :)

Cheers,
Sven

[Kristi]

This is a super helpful feature - can't wait to get the card view with actions - +1 for productivity!

[Ben Jones]

Hi,

This is a great feature. Will it work automatically with the child page macro so that I can create a nice view of all the content items below it? 

[Leonardo Moraes]

Amazing! I see that links also changed in Trello.

[Integrações Carteira Digital Pc]

Nice!

[Isabella Cheng]

Great improvements! Would be nice to show a preview of JIRA ticket's description. :)

[Kim Wallace]

I'm assuming this is a cloud-only enhancement? What functions have been added to manage these richly-formatted links? Is the approach still individual pages or is there an opportunity to review and edit links at a space level?

[James Edwin]

Smart Link in JIRA for JIRA issue does not work however works for bitbucket link as per below :

Does anyone know how i can fix  this ?

[Rishi Kapoor]

This is really cool stuff , the preview feature is great .

[Tomislav Tobijas]

This is pretty cool!

In my case I would like to see Smart Link for SharePoint URLs at some point in the future.

[Ivan Demchenko]

Congratulations on great success!

[Brittany Sudlow]

@Leonardo Moraes Yes, Trello boards are pretty cool to put on a Confluence page. Here is an article outlining the functionality. Also, there is a Power- Up on Trello that you can use to make links to Confluence look better within Trello.

[Leonardo Moraes]

Thanks for sharing @Brittany Sudlow, that is really cool!

[Maciej Gąsowski]

Great improvement!

[Andy Burgess]

These are great thanks. But will they be able to show the new view when used inside a page properties widget and then shown in a page properties report?

[Big Steve]

Can I have a link that opens in a new tab? 

[Spaceblue]

This is amazing. Is there any plan for supporting server version?

[Jari Hyle]

Great! How do I disable it?

[Tina Hutchinson]

Smart Links is a nice feature when you want links to appear that way on your page. But why did Atlassian remove the ability to do simple inline text links? Can't we still have the option to do that? I don't always want every link to appear in the Smart Link way, which converts my inline text link to the full name of the page it's linking to. Sometimes I need the linked text to show exactly as I wrote it. 

Is there a way to edit the text shown in a Smart Link?  Or at least have the option not to make it a Smart Link but a normal inline link? 

[Brittany Sudlow]

@Tina Hutchinson No worries, you can still hyperlink the traditional way. Simply highlight the text you want to link and click the "link" button at the top of the editor, next to the other controls (or Command+K). 

[Tina Hutchinson]

Well, it's not quite that simple @Brittany Sudlow . In your new editor, clicking the "link" button as you describe will also insert as a Smart Link, if you happen to select a recently viewed page for your link. I just tested it and it again inserted / converted as a Smart Link that showed the full page title of what I was linking to.  However, I discovered that if you click the link button and then paste the full URL address in the top field, it will simply convert your text to a link. So that's what I needed, thanks. 

[Vitalii Saienko]

@Tina Hutchinson also you can press Ctrl/Cmd-Z once it's converted to Smart Link, this will make it a blue link.