The ability to add version comments is BACK in Confluence Cloud!

[#1]

Keeping track of who changed what and when can definitely be a challenge without the ability to add a comment when updating a page. For some of us, the version comments are a way to keep track of what changed, but for others, these changes are necessary for audits and legal reasons. This is an important feature for a lot of you. We heard you all loud and clear!

Since the look and feel of the new editing experience is different than the legacy experience, we took this opportunity to improve the process of adding a comment. Adding this kind of comment isn’t something that everyone wants or needs to do, so you can find the action in the More actions menu.

You can also open the Publish with version comment pop-up using a keyboard shortcut!

Mac — command + Shift + Enter                     Windows — Ctrl + Shift + Enter

Once you’ve decided to add a comment to the page or blog you are publishing, you can easily decide if your watchers get notified.

The notification of this change is purposefully separate from the adding of the change comment. While the comment is great for those who want or need to review the page history, notifying all the watchers each time you update a page or blog might be too disruptive to the people watching it. No one needs to get an email that Natalia corrected a few misspellings and updated an image, but for auditing purposes, that could be noteworthy.

As with all cloud features, we’ll start rolling out this feature in the next few weeks. Keep an eye on the Atlassian blog to find out when the rollout starts.

[Maurice Pasman]

While this is great, please put some effort in bringing some of the more trivial features "back" to the new editor, such as full hyperlink search and correct auto sizing of tables. That way I might even consider using it.

[Zoryana Bohutska _SaaSJet_]

It's very cool, that you don't stop improving the product

[Jon R]

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!  GREAT NEWS.

[Mandy Ross]

Great to see this in the product! 

[Sharon Helms]

Thanks for bringing this back! -- We have many people who will be happy to hear this, thanks for the opportunity to share some good news! 🤓  

[carolyn french]

Excellent news!

Can't wait to try it out with the keyboard shortcuts too. This was/is a much-beloved feature.

[Paul Rinnert]

Thank you for adding that feature!

Is there a way to make "Publish with version comment" the default publishing method?
I. e. instead of the normal Publish (without comment).

[Traci Wilbanks]

Hiya @Paul Rinnert

Short answer, no.  However, we do know this kind of control is something that is needed for some Confluence users.  We've heard that this control would be useful at the space or instance level.  As we make improvements to this feature, this is definitely something we will keep in mind.

[Arthur Mack]

Many thanks Atlassian, it took awhile but you did finally listen and give us back a very important feature.

[Jon Silvers]

I was wondering where this little, but helpful, feature had disappeared to. Happy to see its return. 

[Mary Connor]

For accountability and traceability, Admins need the ability to set "Publish with comment" as default or make it required. Please create an issue to track this! Thanks.

[Nate Hague]

Thank you! Showing that you listen to customer feedback is the number one way to inspire customer loyalty.  Keep it up.

[RyanS]

@Mary Connor There are existing tickets for that feature request, though it's worth noting they date back to 2006:

• https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/CONFCLOUD-6373
• https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/CONFSERVER-6373

[Mary Connor]

Because the new UI hides the Comment field from view, it's worse than the old behavior. I think it merits a new issue specific to the Fabric editor.

[Kim Hirschman]

So happy to have this back!!!   Thanks to Atlassian but also to everyone who has followed this issue for a long time and made sure that it didn't disappear!  

[Rodney Hughes]

Whilst the "capability" is BACK (and greatly appreciated), the ease of use is FAR WORSE than it used to be.

In the GREAT old editor, as I was about to click SAVE or PUBLISH depending on version, I could see the Comment field right there on the page to prompt me to think "do I want to add a version explanation comment?"at me.

Now I have to think before I click .. should I click that or click something to see what else I might want to do.

At last you have been smart enough to integrate the <<Notify watchers>> tick box within teh Comments step ... but again that option to decide to notify watchers used to be obvious before I clicked anything .. now it is hidden away and I have to do 2 clicks if I remembers to think about notifying

PLEASE, bring BACK the Comments box and the <<Notify watchers>> directly onto the editing screen without having to click something to see them!!!!  

Neither of these things should have been taken away!!!

[yellomatik _]

Finally, but strange, see the above - totally support.

Anyway thanx for this useful feature back in stock.

[Kim Hirschman]

While I am, as I said above, really grateful to have this feature restored, I have to say that I agree with everyone about the user experience.  I know that the ability to add the comment has been relegated to the menu in order not to "clutter up the screen" but those of us who require a change log to remain in compliance with regulatory requirements would much rather have that little band at the bottom of the screen (and be able to make the comment obligatory) than maximize available screen space and have to remember to select it from the menu.

Also- why do we have to choose between notifying watchers and adding a change note?  If I go into a document and remove an apostrophe, I would still like to document that and spare watchers the announcement that I have made this momentous change.  This isn't a big deal, but it is puzzling.

Still- just having access to our beloved change log text box again is a big improvement. Hopefully we can iron out this next level of issues.

[Peter O'Sullivan]

I'm really pleased this is back, and the marketing of this by Atlassian is quite funny, but the pragmatist in me must win out.

For those who wanted it 'exactly how it was', please try and work with Atlassian here, if it had always been like this you'd have likely been really happy to have it back in that way.

I understand there is a ticket in the system somewhere to configure areas to mandate a comment, and that'll work great to meet the needs of all types of users - i'm off to hunt it down and vote for it.

[Kim Hirschman]

Peter, you are so right.  I almost never get to definitively finish anything at my job, so I think we  should consider this ticket closed.  Please post here when you find the issue you are looking for so we can all migrate over to it.  After all, communicating about Atlassian issues constitutes at least 35% of my social interaction during these trying times!

[Maicon Saraiva]

It's possibile set it to obrigatory?

[Peter O'Sullivan]

For those looking for the feature for mandatory comments etc, you can vote and following the request here:

https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/CONFCLOUD-6373

I don't expect it to happen quickly, if at all, but its worth giving it a go.

[Traci Wilbanks]

@Mary Connor We definitely discussed where this feature should live in the UI and how many clicks it would take to get to that Publish with version comment dialog.  The keyboard shortcut is a direct way to open that dialog and start typing straight away. For those of us who need to add version comments regularly, using the shortcut felt as fast as moving the cursor to the bottom of the page and clicking in the What changed field.

[Mary Connor]

@Traci Wilbanks yes, that's great for power users doing it every day, but it leaves casual contributors completely out. Out of sight, out of mind. Plus, with no ability to set it as required, there's no way to nudge them to do the right thing. :-(

[Traci Wilbanks]

@Mary Connor Points taken.  :)

This isn't the last you'll see on this feature, though.  Now that we have the basic functionality back in the new editor, we'll be tweaking and improving things.  We have heard and get continued support for making version comments required at the instance level and at the space level.  It's great to have such passionate people helping us steer things in the right direction.