Content of page beind edited does not show the unpublished changes

[Adam Brandizzi]

When I make some unedited changes in a page and then restarts the browser, the changes are not visible in the content. For example, I've created and published the page below. Then I added "Here is a small extra snippet" at the end, didn't close / save the page, and restarted the browser.

Going to edit the page again, the snippet is gone...

...but if I go in the "Unpublished changes" option in the menu, the change is there!

However, I would have to copy these changes manually (which quite often is not viable, because they involve complex layouts, expands etc.) back to the page. Sometimes the changes don't even appear in the "Unpublished changes" and I lose a lot of data.

I know that in theory I can solve it by saving or closing the page. However I work with dozens of pages at any point: saving/closing all of them is not practical. And I may not have the chance: the browser can crash, for example.

Is this a bug? What is the chance this behavior gets changed?

[Kristian Klima · Accepted solution]

Hi @Adam Brandizzi 

As @Shawn Doyle - ReleaseTEAM says, Confluence autosaves the content.

Also, you may want to look into the Live Edit mode which is currently being user tested (I'm one of the early access testers). It can be useful in your scenario but be aware that not all apps play nicely with it (see my article about some compatibility issues).

[Adam Brandizzi]

Hi Kristian. Live Edit looks exactly what I was expecting! I was already considering moving to Google Docs (I cannot afford losing so many edits anymore) but if Live Edit is coming, I may stick to Confluence. Which is great, since it really helps building an internal knowledge base. Thank you so much for sharing!

Just one question: is it planned to be released for everybody? Or will it require a setting change by the site admin?

[Kristian Klima]

I think it's gonna be a standard feature. Then it's enabled per space but I wouldn't think too much about permissions now, it's a selected public beta so things are likely to change in that regard.

[Shawn Doyle - ReleaseTEAM]

I don't think it's a bug, at least not an Atlassian thing.

I would say most websites won't guarantee the behavior of modifications if you refresh/load/start the browser without saving/committing your changes. I'm sure someone could state the IETF and/or the W3C text for the HTTP standards that regulate this behavior.  I also suspect this is more a function of the web browser that you are using and how it and your OS caches things.

For example, if you are booking airplane tickets, would you expect your reservation to exist if you restarted your browser before clicking purchase?

As far as sometimes your unpublished changes exist, that you can thank Atlassian and your admin for. Autosaving is turned on in your instance, and you got luckily it ran before you closed Confluence.

[Adam Brandizzi]

Thanks for your response! But how is it a cache thing when the changes were saved (since they appear in the "Unpublished changes" summary) but not present in the document once open to edit?

[Shawn Doyle - ReleaseTEAM]

Autosave will put things into unpublished changes every 30 seconds,  you will need to manually get them from unpublished changes.

[Adam Brandizzi]

Just to give an update to whoever may be interested: there is a ticket opened for that now. https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/CONFCLOUD-79494 If you have this problem, consider voting for it!