What just happened to Confluence Cloud?

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Jim Brent August 27, 2017

I am a Confluence (Atlassian Tool set)  Fan and evangelist... One of the things I liked about Atlassian Tools is they are NOT flashy and they don't mess with non-functional unnecessary "whatevers" .... AND it always works easily... Until now... 

The new UI is something right out of the pages of Microsoft UI Development. (Remember the Windows 8 UI failure)... We previously used SharePoint for all our documentation and Project Management when it was logical and almost text-based (Version 2007) it wasn't all that pretty but pretty much ANYONE in our organization could find stuff and figure out how to use the tool... Then Microsoft went crazy and created all these LARGE icons and messed up all the features we used before the upgrade of 2010 & 2013... Then EVERYONE, including the executives, and young people alike dropped SharePoint like a rock... So we switched to a professional tool set - Atlassian... Everyone was able to figure it out in almost no time at all. 

And now Atlassian appears to have adopted the same short-sighted UI improvement approach that all the kool kids use for their video games and shopping sites... I hate to mention it but Confluence is not a liesure time application or a shopping website... it is a tool to get stuff done quickly without having to take a 40 hour course to figure out how to do simple tasks... 

Off soap-box.

Thanks for listening... Atlassian is a top notch tool suite (we use it for lots more than just software development)... please don't mess it up for us users... 

Thank you... 

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Prem Chudzinski _extensi_
Marketplace Partner
Marketplace Partners provide apps and integrations available on the Atlassian Marketplace that extend the power of Atlassian products.
August 29, 2017

Move to server :)

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Nicholas Wade July 25, 2019

Oi! what rose-coloured glasses are you wearing?

Confluence Cloud is the most miserable misconception I have ever had the misfortune to come across.

Confluence not flash? Well, that's because there is nothing to be flashy about. This crippled machiavellian product should be shelved along with such wonders as the Sinclair C5. 

"but Confluence is not a liesure time application".. there is no leisure time! You spend every moment trying to configure the document as things slip around the screen out of control. This is simply the worst application I have ever ...ever had the misfortune to be using. 

..." it is a tool to get stuff done quickly..." NO..no..niete, non.! You definitely will not get stuff done quickly.. sure, you will feel like you have, because you will be slapping stuff up there like plaster... but truth be told, you will spend hours...days... seeking out help for stupid problems or fiddling with templates that just go berserk on you.

Oh... and the reason it does not take a 40 hour course (what kind of dummy needs 40 hours?) is because the interface is infantile. I'd be better off prodding the tools with a water lollypop.

So... I have not got off my soap box... I hate this wretched, miserable devils spawn and long for a normal writing tool.

Thank you...

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umwerk Confluence August 28, 2017

I'm also shocked by the fact you can't switch to the old UI. As a UX Researcher and Usability Engineer the abolishment of the old Page Tree is probably the biggest Backward-Leap I've ever encountered. 

The whole concept behind the old UI was the hierarchy which is now killed by disabling the classic tree which exactly showed you the order and dependencies of the respective knowledge. 

 

I also don't see an Opt Out Option. As a paying customer I think, that the customer itself should be able to decide what UI Layout to use and which not.

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Liron
Atlassian Team
Atlassian Team members are employees working across the company in a wide variety of roles.
August 28, 2017

Hey, 

There is an opt out option in the UI both from your profile menu (bottom left, where you see your picture), or from the blue sidebar under 'New Experience' there's an opt out button.

You can opt out between now and mid September by which date we will be switching everyone back onto the new experience.

Please use this time to adjust and also let us know of anything you find in the new experience that is holding you back.

The page tree, is still there, just not on overview pages. Please let me know if you can't find it?

Thanks

 

Liron

Till Noever August 28, 2017

How clear can anybody be? Seriously!

I want the page tree there by default.

NO looking around for it. NO clicking here and there. NO need to explain to new users how they get it. It just should be there. Because it is arguably Confluence's most useful identifyable UI feature. 

Overview pages are secondary, and for those who actually have a use for 'overviews'. Only a very small number of those who use Confluence in our organisation actually do. I suspect this also is the case in most other instabces.

Is that so difficult to understand? People look for information about specific things. Or they want to add information about specific things. The number of those who want 'meta information' is minuscule in comparison. 

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Liron
Atlassian Team
Atlassian Team members are employees working across the company in a wide variety of roles.
August 28, 2017

Hi Till,

We do understand this request.

Thanks for explaining it again, trust us that we are considering ALL angles and seeking to find the best solution for our customers.

 

Thanks

Liron

Till Noever August 28, 2017

Let me say it in the fewest possible words:

The Page Tree should always be visible, no matter what type of page is displayed.

(Unless a user turns that default off by choice.)

Also, I find the following statement almost unbelievably arrogant and condescending:

"Please use this time to adjust and also let us know of anything you find in the new experience that is holding you back."

Am I the only one?

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Liron
Atlassian Team
Atlassian Team members are employees working across the company in a wide variety of roles.
August 28, 2017

Hey Till,

I'm really sorry that you were offended by my comment. It was certainly never my intent to come across as arrogant and condescending.

I think the best way to avoid any misunderstandings would be for us to continue this discussion via a video call. Would you be happy to do this?

Thanks!

Liron

Till Noever August 28, 2017

No thanks. I'm tired of this whole discussion and am bowing out.

You guys will do as you please anyway. Sign of the times.

I was a software developer for almost 30 years before I became a techwriter, and in those days long gone, we kind of paid attention to what people actually wanted--and to fixing bugs first!--before diving into changes imagined by people who think they know better than their user-base what's good for the latter, or what said users would actually like to see. All in the name of 'new experiences'. Which, frankly, is nonsense, but definitely the current Zeitgeist; with software producers of all kinds assuming that their clients consist mostly of 'experience' neophiliacs.

They don't. And your designers definitely do not know 'better' what clients want than said clients. So maybe next time you guys should do some serious market  and real 'user' surveys before conjuring up more new 'experiences'.

To end on a positive note: I do prefer the new font! Much.

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Helen Griffith August 29, 2017

(I like the new font too. But everything else makes me really sad.)

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Jim Brent August 29, 2017

Till,

I read your deeply thoughtful comments and was surprised how your experiences are similar to mine... However, after 30 years, I am still a developer.

I can remember when we were just starting computerization of tasks in the banking industry some 29 years ago and the users were Luddites and (correctly) feared the automation of their tasks... However at that time the usability research with the workers was extensive  ~ ad nausium. It took six months of painstaking research before we were allowed to start coding. And the users were not happy because the change from paper to electronic processing was so drastic, it was a complete paradigm shift of epic proporations. The change took at least 10 - 15 years to become the new normal (with constant modification and refinement)... THAT was a business driven decision.

I think this shift in the UI is similar... Atlassian is moving towards the  modern lowest cost user that will do everything on their Phone or PED at the lowest cost... The users will have to just trudge along because evey other tool out there is doing similar things... I would imagine that re-working the UI to include the tree view is a cost the company is unwilling to make because it might negatively affect someone's annual bonus or their political capital within the hierarchy of their organization. They will report to the "committee or team" that "some troublesome users made a fuss but they will adapt and profits will increase long term..."

I think Atlassian forgets that many of us hard core developers work on Intranets because the Internet/Cloud is not permiteed at work for security reasons. Therefore, we won't ever be able to use the advantages of mobil device development. Trust me - the Cloud and the web ain't secure and won't be for another 20 - 40 years... (We have two seperate enterprise-scale implentations two seperate Atalaissen tool suites.)

I doubt tthat Atlassian will have the courage to admit they messed this up - Netflix did when they messed up their core business with the online-only option decision... They reverted finally and regained most of the lost 20% of their customers. (That CEO should have been fired.) 

Atlassian will not fix this until there is demonstratable loss of revenue. Which given the fact the customer base is stuck with HUGE  investments in the content probably won't happen.

Confluence is going to become the "SharePoint like tool"  that users dislike and are stuck with...) as we are in our organization...

For me I am moving to a new organization in two weeks and can tell you I am not going to use Atlassian Tools for the new project (I am the team lead)...

And yes we will be assimilated... LOL

Don't forget Liron has a tough job to do and most likely is not making these decisions so I am impressed with her professionalism in the face of irate customers. 

Best wishes to all.. 

Liron
Atlassian Team
Atlassian Team members are employees working across the company in a wide variety of roles.
August 29, 2017

Thanks for the recognition Jim.

Regarding the specific page tree issue (it not being available in the overview page), I beg to differ that "Atlassian will not fix this until there is a demonstrable loss of revenue". Although revenue is obviously what drives most companies, it is not the only driver here I assure you. 

One must remember that people use Confluence for a variety of use cases, many of which do not include needing the page tree when looking at the overview page (especially considering the page tree exists on ALL other page views, and in its own tab 'Pages', and is available as a macro configurable to go on any page, including overview if you wish).

Also , we are indeed implementing some improvements in the coming 2 weeks that will ease this pain, I assure you this. This is why we have delayed the dates around making the new experience the default one. As I mentioned in previous posts, I will confirm what we are shipping very soon.

In the near future after that, there are initiatives in place to try and cater for even more use cases of Confluence. This, like always, will involve user research and interviews, and I urge anyone on this thread to let us know if you want to participate in such research in the future. This is how we always build new things (including this new experience) and we would love to hear about the exact context of your sites/spaces in order to learn how Confluence can best serve your specific use case.

So, bottom line is, Atlassian is not turning its back on its users, on the contrary, we have made this design shift based on research and user studies (as we always do) - however we do realise this particular issue is painful for some customers - which is why we will continue to improve on this in the coming future. We are not dropping it, the page tree is still core to Confluence and we need to balance this together with a clean productive user interface - which we will.

Thanks again for the recognition of our work - it means a lot especially in threads such as these.

All the best

Liron

Helen Griffith August 29, 2017

Hi@Liron,

I'd be very interested in taking part in future research. Like many others I'm sure, tool choice is out of my hands and I have been told that I must use Confluence regardless of whether it's the right tool for us. It's quite apparent that it's not—based on the fact that I continually find that I simply can't do what I need to even before this current change—but it was just about usable with as much customization as I can possibly do. Now it's not...

So to be part of something that might shape the future of the product would be a really positive step.

Please add me to whatever user experience initiative you have.

Thanks!

Helen

Liron
Atlassian Team
Atlassian Team members are employees working across the company in a wide variety of roles.
August 29, 2017

Will do Helen ! Wondering if there's a way here that you can give me your email address? Perhaps direct message me on Twitter? 

Helen Griffith August 29, 2017

Hi @Liron Have tried to DM you on Twitter but you need to follow me there...

Liron
Atlassian Team
Atlassian Team members are employees working across the company in a wide variety of roles.
August 29, 2017

done :)

Abhay Patil August 29, 2017

@Liron - will like to participate in "user research" that you mention above.  (I have followed you on twitter @abhaymitaan.)

Monique vdB
Community Manager
Community Managers are Atlassian Team members who specifically run and moderate Atlassian communities. Feel free to say hello!
August 29, 2017

I can facilitate as well, since we don't yet have direct messaging -- if anyone would like me to share their email address with @Liron directly, I can do so. 

Abhay Patil August 29, 2017

That would be great. Thanks.

Monique vdB
Community Manager
Community Managers are Atlassian Team members who specifically run and moderate Atlassian communities. Feel free to say hello!
August 29, 2017

Done, @Abhay Patil :) 

Susan Ostreicher
Rising Star
Rising Star
Rising Stars are recognized for providing high-quality answers to other users. Rising Stars receive a certificate of achievement and are on the path to becoming Community Leaders.
August 29, 2017

@Monique vdB, can you please share my email for user research too?  Thanks!

Monique vdB
Community Manager
Community Managers are Atlassian Team members who specifically run and moderate Atlassian communities. Feel free to say hello!
August 29, 2017
Liron
Atlassian Team
Atlassian Team members are employees working across the company in a wide variety of roles.
August 29, 2017

This is great! I will make sure your names are added to our list of users to contact for our next round of interviews!

 

Liron

Jim Brent August 29, 2017

Hi Liron,

Sounds like I might be wrong... Nothing could make me happier.

;-)

Best wishes.

Jim

Till Noever August 29, 2017

Jim,

Thanks for your comments. Inclined to agree with most of what you wrote.

And, yes, Liron is doing a good job. Not easy being on the customer-comms coalface. (Been there, too.)

Stéphane Veraart (Devoteam) September 25, 2017

Please add me to the list as well. I'd be more than happy to provide feedback also based on what key-users at my clients think of it.

Bruce Reeler August 28, 2017

Why, when it's patently obvious that many people need the tree view to operate their sites, doesn't Atlassian make it a configurable option?

How much more obvious does it need to be?

Then, if you want to display your screens on a narrow mobile phone screen, you can choose to turn the tree off.

But all we hear is: "..we will be bringing customers back into the new experience by default (with no option to opt out) in mid September".

Sounds like: "resistance is futile, you WILL be assimilated".

Sound familiar?

Brendan Andrews August 28, 2017

And can we please lose the permanent notification taking up space at the top of the screen when you've opted out? Like the rest of the change it's the opposite of helpful.

Helpful would be to have permanently displayed the opt out option.. :)

I've blocked it with adblock for now.

Bruce Reeler August 28, 2017

+1 ! 

The notification area has also been implemented badly so that it requires its own additional scrollbar.

So when editing, one needs to either scroll the new scroll bar, or scroll down further than the bottom of the text area to see the "Publish" button.

Capture2.PNG

Abhay Patil August 29, 2017

@Liron I have created a support ticket for an issue for "too much of white space" in a simple page. I have included screenshots of the same page in old and new UI to highlight how it looks inelegant and sparse in the new UI. Please check https://getsupport.atlassian.com/servicedesk/customer/portal/23/JST-320593

Liron
Atlassian Team
Atlassian Team members are employees working across the company in a wide variety of roles.
August 29, 2017

Just replied to you there!

Martin Sauter August 29, 2017

@LironI would love the read your reply, but when I follow the link posted above, all I get is a message saying «You do not have permission to view this request.» What's the reason for this?

Liron
Atlassian Team
Atlassian Team members are employees working across the company in a wide variety of roles.
August 29, 2017

Perhaps because support tickets arent public?

Martin Sauter August 29, 2017

OK, probably I didn't get the difference between some JIRA Tickets mentioned elsewhere in the discussion an Support Tickets. No problem.

Helen Griffith August 30, 2017

This sounds familiar... Is it where Confluence adds a blank line before and after lots of macros? You can delete them but they immediately reappear?

Abhay Patil August 30, 2017

@Martin Sauter and @Helen Griffith: Check below the same page in "old" and "new" experience. (I had to shrink new page to show all the extra spaces - have added arrows to highlight.) Old experience is compact - new one too sparse!page-old.pngpage-new.png

Helen Griffith August 31, 2017

@Abhay Patil - wow, that's a lot of whitespace... I've not noticed that (yet).

Abhay Patil August 31, 2017

In the name of good aesthetics please vote for the bug https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/CONFCLOUD-57204

Helen Griffith September 5, 2017

I've voted for your ticket... Please vote for mine :) https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/CONFCLOUD-56932 (it's a problem with fonts with the Page Tree macro).

Abhay Patil September 6, 2017

Done!

Helen Griffith September 6, 2017

@Abhay Patil - thank you...

Font issue exists with the Livesearch macro too...

Helen Griffith August 30, 2017

Anyone found a way to change the colour of anything?!

The old UI enabled me to change the colour of the navigation bar across the top of the space. While it was only a tiny bit of customization, it meant I could see quite quickly whether I was in the right space or not. Now all my spaces look the same at a glance. If I go to Look and Feel -- Themes, I have no 'themes' to choose. It seems that I have to install an add-on from the Marketplace. The only applicable add-on (RefinedSpaces for Confluence Cloud) gets really bad reviews, nor is it free. At this point, I don't want to pay another penny (cent!) for the tool.

Is this another thing that's been taken away?

Bruno Miretti August 30, 2017

All I've been able to keep is my customized colored headings. I used to add a picture in the navigation bar, lost too...

For your answer, I did receive this mail from Liron. Didn't you ?

Space colors and the new Confluence
Hi Bruno,
My name's Liron, and I'm a product manager on the Confluence team.
You may have heard we're rolling out a shiny new version of Confluence, and there are some big visual changes. As part of the process, I'm writing to let you know that we've decided to remove the ability to set a color scheme for each space. Our analytics show that one or more of the spaces on your site are using a custom color scheme.
We're removing custom color schemes for spaces to provide a consistent experience for Confluence users, where the colors of text, links, headings, and navigation items don't negatively affect readability or accessibility. You can still have an avatar for each space, and brand your Confluence site by adding a logo, title, and color for the global sidebar. To provide an easy transition, we'll automatically migrate existing logos and header colors (if you have them) to the new sidebar for you.

Michael Corvin August 30, 2017

These changes are going in entirely the wrong direction.

Rather than constraining configurability and functional extensibility, Atlassian should be enhancing configurability, enabling site administrator/developers to totally customize the look, layout and what functionality is presented on different sites, spaces and pages in Confluence (and JIRA, for that matter).

Yes it should come 'out of the box' with one (or more) slick, fully functional UI look, layout, color scheme, and presented functionality that a significant portion of the customer base will use with few changes.

But, the same way that we use many custom page templates with page layouts and interacting sets of macros, the entire site and individual spaces should be fully configurable.   Some customer teams may then create radically reconfigured solutions for entirely new use cases which could benefit you when shared with the community.

Totally agree with Helen - sometimes you want spaces to be instantly recognizable, not 'all the same for consistency'.

IFF you've implemented with a clean separation of responsibilities architecture (model-view-controller...) you should end up with a toolkit of functionality that the Atlassian devs use to configure the 'default' site - just expose that to the user admins.    

Two of the best things about Confluence have been the macro extensibility and the REST API.   Why not extend that to full site configurability?

Abhay Patil August 30, 2017

I believe both "consistency" and "configurability" should be within reason. Both should be kept simple. While I will vote for allowing different colours for spaces as a SIMPLE configurability option (even if it compromises "consistency", if you will) - but for nothing fancier than that.  Similarly, content is the key artifact in Confluence, so I agree with Atlassian that configurability should be limited.

(I have some new users complaining that Confluence editor is not as rich as Word! Of course, I tell them. It is there for collaboratively creating content  - not for creating industrial strength webpages and documents.)

Michael Corvin August 30, 2017

Point taken.

The thing is, Confluence is now so feature- and capability-rich that it spans the gamut from being used in the original spirit of wiki-wiki, with the focus on simple collaboration through basically formatted text and image content, all the way up to enterprise documentation and integration with other tools.

It has transcended wiki-wiki and is getting closer to being usable as a fully collaborative hypermedia knowledge capture and creation space.

This is something some of us have been envisioning for years - if it can be bent (configured...) to our evil will (cue maniacal laughter...).  With page content serving as input front ends or live outputs from other tools, using labels/page properties/reports to auto-index content, using Comala Workflows for traceable CM of content, etc., the potential utility is massive.

Something like Sharepoint or other 'content managers' are not even comparable because they are still totally mired in the "dead tree" document paradigm of managing files, not actual hypermedia content.  Old school notions of "documents" need to be replaced by versioned slices through versioned atomic elements of the hypermedia space... and those nodes may themselves be portals into other spaces or functionality or actually reflect executable processes.

Having UI configurability available helps enables this: site and space layout, where the menu elements are, how they look (icon, font, size, color, default pop-out state) and which of the items available on that menu element are displayed (icon, font, color, order, spacing, etc) should be configurable, as should be the default page layout, fonts, etc.

Perhaps I'm asking for too much...

But... 20 years ago I was fully documenting and executing GN&C design and validation processes in an early hypermedia environment.

Helen Griffith August 31, 2017

@Bruno Miretti - no, I didn't get the email from Liron... @Liron, is there any chance I can keep my different spaces' colors?

Lisa de Araujo August 30, 2017

Seems our custom templates have broken as well. This inability to brand the pages makes it now unsuitable for external use. 

Is this something that will also be implemented on the self-hosted version or shall we start looking for something else that integrates with Jira?

Michael Corvin August 30, 2017

Hi - is it your custom page creation templates that have broken?    That would really be a huge problem for us...   or just the site look template?

Robert Lauriston August 30, 2017

Atlassian's notion that spaces should be consistent demonstrates a profound lack of knowledge about how some people use Confluence.

Or maybe they do know, but don't think it's enough customers to bother with, especially when third-party plugin vendors may pick up the slack.

Poochee Yuen September 5, 2017

I swtch between jira and confluence quite a lot and now this switch is at the bottom of the left hand sude, and takes a lot longer than before to actually do the switch. Anybody else experienced this?

Josh Mings September 14, 2017

Yes, it does take longer. I ended up just making a shortcut in my browser to the primary page - saves me two clicks.

Brian Houston September 5, 2017

Please bring back the page tree by default.   For my users it's the most important feature of your product. 

Please bring back a simple search box to all pages on confluence. For my users it's the 2nd most important feature of your product.  

Thanks

Josh Mings September 14, 2017

Brian, what we've done is made a copy of the homepage (when the Overview section is selected), turning that into a Page. We put that at the top of the page tree and direct people to that. Doing so allows the page tree to be displayed in the sidebar. Here's what it looks like https://luxion.atlassian.net/wiki/x/u2glB

Robert Lauriston September 14, 2017

Is that a static copy of the page tree, so you have to update it any time the tree changes?

Josh Mings September 14, 2017

Nope, that's not a static copy. It's the regular page tree. We just link people to the top page of the page tree, so the page tree shows, instead of the root homepage of the space.

If they hit the 'Pages' link at the top, they do go back to the (useless) page contributor list, but can't do anything about that.

Josh Mings September 14, 2017

I think this thread shows the lack of Atlassian listening to their customers. Moving our documentation to Cloud, I was assured more customization would be coming. With the new design, the opposite happened, our customers are confused, and we're left with finding workarounds. (Moving to Server is NOT an option.) And now we're paying more with the new licensing. Which leaves us with looking at other options for our documentation.

We need sidebar/page tree options back to at least what they were before.

We need options for initial sidebar display state for a space.

We need options for what to display and what not to display on space/pages.

We need more options for space/page style

Bottom line: Confluence needs more options, more customization.

Michael Corvin September 14, 2017

+1  Amen!

Lucy Minato September 18, 2017

Here are a couple more JIRA tickets regarding features in the new-look Cloud Confluence that I'm not happy with:

https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/CONFCLOUD-57521

https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/CONFCLOUD-57523

Please add your vote if you agree. Thanks!

Abhay Patil September 18, 2017

The "new experience" just doesn't cease to surprise one with instances of complete lack of UX basics! Now, I see the icon of the space that I work in. WhenI  hover over it, it shows name of the space. Great so far. But when I click on it - expecting to get to the space overview page, it pops up a menu  of "Recent spaces"! And it doesn't stop there. The "Recent Spaces" DOES NOT SHOW the space that I have been working in exclusively all the time! :(  

POSTSCRIPT: As I think more, however non-intuitive this behavior appears to me, it sure is a "design feature". I.e. the space icon shows the space I am in, and when I click on it, it shows me recent spaces that I may choose to go to. Oh well.

SpaceIconHover.png

Bruno Miretti September 19, 2017

And we can add: anonymous users won't see anything there except "All spaces" making complicated to move back to a previous space !

Please vote for this one: CONFCLOUD-57410

Thanks

Lisa de Araujo September 21, 2017

Above, LIron said "There are many many use cases of it disturbing and taking focus away from the overview page, for some types of spaces."

I'm curious about these use cases and types of spaces. I have always thought confluence was a documentation / support / wiki application. What else do people use it for. I'm clearing not very imaginative, because I can't think of any use that requires a "home" page that needs such total focus that navigation becomes an unnecessary distraction. 

Josh Mings September 21, 2017

"many many" - I don't believe it for a second. Of all the examples we looked at before deciding to go with Confluence, all were used as manual/documentation. None were using Blog and Tutorial. First thing seen was the page tree.

It's simple Atlassian. Let the use case decide what goes there.

Brian Houston September 21, 2017

Agree completely.  I would imagine that the use case for Confluence as a blogging platform is small - but perhaps the Atlassian team sees this as an area that they're trying to push into more.  

It's a shame from a product management aspect because Confluence works so well as a  documentation / support / wiki application.  

Hubristic overreach maybe?

Till Noever September 24, 2017

Been continuing to follow this discussion, even though I was/am/will-continue-to-be fed up with Atlassian and their approach to development. I'm also frustrated because I can read the signs and they aren't good.

Still, I have a question: Am I the only one who is truly astonished by what looks to me like Atlassian's cluelessness about what their user base actually does with this tool? More specifically: Are they actually clueless, or is this crappy 'new experience' the result of careful market surveys, and not just of developer/marketer group-think?

The alternative of course is that in both cases where I was contracting for (large!) organisations using Confluence I got what amounts to an unrepresentative sample, and that what they're doing now is actually for the best of Atlassian's business, even though it is annoying to those here expressing their opinion and who obviously are less than pleased with the changes and the company's attitude. Maybe the uproar here is not representative of the user base as a whole, and we're just hearing from those of us who do have reasons to object to the treatment we're getting.

If this is the case, then Atlassian are almost certainly going to continue with their development-behavior as they have in this last 'new experience'...

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Brian Houston September 24, 2017

You make a valid point that we are a self-selecting group of complainers - and the people who are happy with the new version are unlikely to show up in this discussion.  

However, I have been using Confluence for a few years now in various organisations - and find it unlikely that their current direction - (de-emphasis on page tree, emphasis on blogs etc) is the majority use case for the platform.  

Till Noever September 24, 2017

Thanks for that, Brian. Truth is, I have no idea what the overall user-base picture is. Just thought I'd bring this up. As I said, my own sample size is small, and it's always iffy to make broad inferences from small numbers (a.k.a. 'faulty generalization').

And, BTW, I don't consider us 'complainers', though self-selected we are! 'Critics' sounds so much better. 'Defenders Of User Rights' sounds even better (alas, that makes us into the 'DOUR' ones). Also, methinks Atlassian has far less flattering attributes for us when they talk among themselves, even though these would of course never make this forum. Would love to be a fly on the wall there. lol

Robert Lauriston September 25, 2017

Am I the only one who is truly astonished ...

I've seen it twice before, with the rounding of space logos and the announcement of the discontinuation of the Documentation theme.

That's one of the reasons I switched from Confluence Server + Scroll plugins to Paligo for authoring customer-facing documentation.

Josh Mings September 25, 2017

Thanks for the tip on Paligo. We've been evaluating new tools and this looks interesting. Started the trial. Pricing is confusing though $119 per Author for small team, but states 'No Author Limit'. 

Robert Lauriston September 25, 2017

I presume "no author limit" means you can get as many author licenses as you want.

Ask them for the full price list, there are various mix-and-match options. I'm the only writer here so the plan that works for me is the Business version, which allows unlimited reviewers.

Yikes, there's a quote from me at the top of the pricing page. I did give them permission but I didn't expect it to be quite that prominent.

We're still using Confluence Cloud for internal stuff like specs and status reports and I still like it better than other wikis. The new UI is less efficient but for those relatively simple tasks it hasn't caused any big problems yet.

Josh Mings September 25, 2017

Nice quote! :)

True, Confluence does seem better used for internal documentation purposes at this point, especially with Jira alongside. I think what most of us are after is a way to hide all the wiki bits from external users - just show the page tree and page!

Robert Lauriston September 25, 2017

If you move your customer-facing docs to a Confluence Server instance, you could use Scroll Viewport to publish the content to a web server any way you like, or if you don't care about publishing changes in real time, you could use Scroll HTML Exporter.

Josh Mings September 25, 2017

Thanks Robert. Server isn't an option for us right now. Appreciate the suggestions though.

Lisa de Araujo September 21, 2017

And, by the way, I tried to edit my comment typos and got this: IMG_0712.PNG

Robert Lauriston September 28, 2017

Put the names back on the Page History.

Screen Shot 2017-09-28 at 11.56.29 AM.png

Caroline Bartle
Atlassian Team
Atlassian Team members are employees working across the company in a wide variety of roles.
September 29, 2017

Hi @Robert Lauriston - user names were removed from page history a little while ago as part of the introduction of collaborative editing to Confluence Cloud.

When multiple users edit a page and these changes are published as a version, all according avatars are displayed in the 'changed by' column. The removal of names was implemented to allow for additional display space for multiple avatars. We do encourage users to upload a profile pic so that they can be identified visually on such a page.

Joe Koberg September 29, 2017

What user task was improved in speed or completed successfully more often with this change?  

It's bad. We want textual information so we can scan and summarize.

 

Lucy Minato October 1, 2017

On a related topic, I've requested for the ability to turn off/on the Contributors column on the "Pages" page given a row of avatars means nothing to our users who just want to get to a page our of product user guide.

Add your vote here if it's something you could use: https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/CONFCLOUD-57521

(And yes, there's no denying it, I am using this forum to canvas votes for my JIRA issues :-)

Robert Lauriston October 3, 2017

Is there some way to make the top toolbar (with the edit button, among other things) sticky? It appears sometimes when I scroll up, then disappears before I can actually click the edit button.

Being able to switch from read to edit mode without scrolling to the top of the page and then back again would be a great improvement if I could get it to work.

Firefox on OS X

Martin Sauter October 3, 2017

I miss the sticky top toolbar too, but using the keyboard shortcut «E» to edit a page could be an alternative, at least for experienced users.

Caroline Bartle
Atlassian Team
Atlassian Team members are employees working across the company in a wide variety of roles.
October 22, 2017

Hi @Robert Lauriston and @Martin Sauter - the sticky toolbar is functioning on Firefox on OS X. It'll appear if you do one upward scroll on a page, and should stay there allowing you to access the page action buttons. 

Let me know if this isn't what you're experiencing.

Martin Sauter October 22, 2017

Yes, an upward scroll makes the toolbar visible, but the next downward scroll makes it disappear again. This is not exactly what I'd call «sticky», and an option to pin it permanently would be nice.

david metzler October 6, 2017

So, I must have gotten 'lucky' and my space didn't switch over to the new POS interface until today.  I'm really lost.  Sometimes the page tree will show up in the left column.  Sometimes it doesn't.  I don't know if this is because they just transitioned me and it's a bug or temporary, but regardless I assume the page tree is going to disappear permanently at some point.  

So, despite all the comments and what I assumed was universal disapproval, Confluence has disregarded all of us?

- search is moved and is worse

- page tree is gone or mostly gone when you visit a space

Has anyone made an idiots guide for navigating this new mess / improving it for users that want the page tree to be persistent so they know where they are?  And in this context I'm referring to myself as the idiot, but it wouldn't hurt for the UX designers to eat some humble pie and figure out how to make users happy either.

Lucy Minato October 12, 2017

@david metzler I'd have written a idiots guide if I'd sussed it out by now but it still confuses me (and we've been on the new UI for over a month!). But from what I've found, the Page Tree appears when you are actually on a "page" as opposed to the landing page of your space(s) or the Overview page. Sounds logical but yet it still doesn't seem intuitive to me when I'm using Confluence. 

You'll get used to this weird navigation, sort of. Or you could end up like me and just keep clicking until you get to the Page Tree. We have multiple spaces so this becomes even more confusing. 

Brian Houston October 12, 2017

That's what I do, just keep clicking - and eventually the page tree shows up, after four or five clicks.  ... not a great way to navigate.  

Lucy Minato October 12, 2017

I find getting into a zen head-space helps too ;-)

Helen Griffith October 16, 2017

Lol @Lucy Minato "just keep clicking until you get to the Page Tree" - exactly! We have 105 spaces so it can take a while :)

Josh Mings October 16, 2017

I mentioned this above, but what we've done is made a copy of the top level page (what you select as Home Page in Space Details, which is the page displayed when you click Overview). We put that copy at the top of the page tree and direct people to that. Doing so shows the page tree in the sidebar immediately. 

We then hide the Overview page in the sidebar.

Speaking of... This is (at least) one update they've made - you can now hide sections in the sidebar. Click the pencil icon in the lower right of the sidebar. Select the '+' or 'x' icon to show or hide a section.

 

Helen Griffith October 17, 2017

Hi @Josh Mings... I've tried this but it's not working for me :(

Josh Mings October 17, 2017

It may be easier to explain with the links. Here is the link to see the heirarchy (absolutely crazy that this can be viewed publically, even without edit capability, and without any way to restrict viewing it - another issue for another time. arrrrrrrgh).

https://luxion.atlassian.net/wiki/pages/reorderpages.action?key=K7M&openId=69560507#selectedPageInHierarchy

You can see that 'KeyShot 7 Manual' and 'KeyShot 7 Online Manual' are the same - 'KeyShot 7 Manual' is set as the Home Page (under the Space Tools, Overview options - this Home Page is what displays when someone clicks Overview in the side bar), and KeyShot 7 Online Manual is the copy of that page.

BUT, we link people to the 'KeyShot 7 Online Manual' page so, since it's a page in the page tree, the rest of the page tree is visible in the sidebar.

So, we send people this link (and link to it from our other documentation/software) and, as you'll see, the page tree is visible. https://luxion.atlassian.net/wiki/x/u2glB

I truly hope this helps you!

Martin Sauter October 9, 2017

Today, my Confluence Cloud instance was switched to the new UI. I cannot express how frustrated I am.

For months I've tried to help Atlassian to see and eliminiate the massive usability problems of the new UI. In the beginning, they simply ignored me. Then, when discussions like this one gained momentum, they began to reply, and it sounded like an honest intention to change the product for the better. Now that I see the result I have to say: This was just PR talk – the big issues are still present.

It could have been so easy: Why not leave the users with the possibility to choose themselves between the old and the new UI? Why not convincing instead of forcing us?

Instead Atlassian chose to ignore the user feedbacks like the ones in this discussion. Atlassian: Are you aware the we are your paying customers? Are you aware how many applications of your product you are breaking just for a new shiny design? Are you aware that many of us are experienced professionals and have reasons for complaining?

Today, Atlassian has lost a Confluence evangelist.

Robert Lauriston October 12, 2017

They're rolling the new UI out to JIRA. Maybe they care more about what those users have to say.

Brendan Andrews October 12, 2017

They don't.

 

They do however keep asking for feedback which I ignore now, because Atlassian plainly haven't integrated much if any of this thread into what I'm forced to look at in Confluence now. It's an office wide source of confusion.

 

But please - do pop up another feedback box. One day I'll forget and the illusion they listen may be some comfort. :)

Monique vdB
Community Manager
Community Managers are Atlassian Team members who specifically run and moderate Atlassian communities. Feel free to say hello!
October 12, 2017

@Brendan Andrews if you're talking about the community pop-up, that's specifically asking for feedback on the community itself, and we are responding to that. I know it doesn't help with the Confluence Cloud frustration but just wanted to clarify. 

Robert Lauriston October 12, 2017

Is there a less time-consuming and fiddly way to hide and show the left nav than carefully hovering the mouse pointer over the very middle of the right border until the <  or > appears?

Martin Sauter October 12, 2017

Yes. You can

  • click anywhere on the border between the sidebar and the page content (the border turns to blue when you hover over it)
  • use the keyboard shortcut: [
Michael Corvin October 16, 2017

Well, that's totally bleedin' obvious to our users ... NOT

Robert Lauriston October 16, 2017

The [ shortcut is handy, thanks.

Ron Holmes October 23, 2017

This change has caused our users to abandon the platform.

Change management is a foundation of good project management, and for Atlassian to mess this up, is surprising. 

Please keep looking at reinstating the simple page tree structure - my users are starting to request alternate solutions like Microsoft's platform which offers a number of additional capabilities that will make the sales pitch against my chosen platform (Atlassian) so much easier.

Sasha Milinkovic November 20, 2017

Same here. Some of our clients are now switching to Sharepoint because of this...

Abhay Patil November 9, 2017

@Liron and Products Team! Just noticed that the "Select file" button to pick a file for "Import Word document" is NOT WORKING! Raised a ticket https://getsupport.atlassian.com/servicedesk/customer/portal/23/JST-343644.

Not sure why such regressions should keep on happening. This is the second time some simple yet key step goes bad. (Last time it was the date picker // that had stopped working :( )

UPDATE: This is a bug reported two days ago. PLEASE VOTE for it! It's just too basic function that it MUST get fixed ASAP! https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/CONFCLOUD-58158

Caroline Bartle
Atlassian Team
Atlassian Team members are employees working across the company in a wide variety of roles.
November 9, 2017

Hi @Abhay Patil - thank you for raising this, and I'm sorry for the disruption that this issue has had on you and other impacted Confluence customers. We're looking into this now, and hope to have it resolved shortly. 

Poochee Yuen November 9, 2017

I lost my pages, took a long time to find them- and they become orphaned to another space. What is going on?

Deleted user January 3, 2018

We have the same problem here with the missing page tree in the default side bar:

Once you have clicked on «Pages» in a specific space this is the default next time you open that space. But then the space home page is not visible anymore and you have to click again to bring it back. 

So we see either the home page with no direct access to one child side or we see the page overview but not the home page without further clicks.

Maybe you should consider to blend in the sidebar optionally.

Josh Mings January 3, 2018

The workaround we've found is to make a copy of the 'Home page', put it at the top of the page tree and link people to this page. This way they see the Home page and the child pages in the page tree. Like so: https://luxion.atlassian.net/wiki/x/u2glB

We then hide the 'Overview' link in the sidebar. 'Pages' is still visible above the child pages and the link to the 'Overview' page is still accessible from the breadcrumbs, but we've added a 'Children Display' macro on the 'Overview' page to display direct links to the child pages and avoid having to go to 'Pages'. It's the most we've been able to do to prevent people from getting lost until Atlassian improves the options and customization.

Hope this helps.

Deleted user January 3, 2018

Thanks, I that is a workaround at least :) 

But in our case even the overview page is work in progress. So we add stakeholders, milestones, releasedate and roadmaps there. In that case we would have to edit the hidden startpage and the copy.

Is there anyway to redirect instanly from the startpage to the copy, so that there has not be any content on the startpage?

Thanks for your help.

Josh Mings January 4, 2018

Yeah, that would be a pain. There's no way to set redirects in Confluence that I know of unfortunately.

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