Count child pages of parent when creating a page from template

[Axel Holene]

I'm trying to automatically set parts of the title in pages created with a macro, inspiation found here: https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Confluence-questions/How-to-count-the-number-of-child-pages-with-a-particular-label/qaq-p/445878

The macro I've written counts the child pages of the current parent, and returns that number + 1, indicating the numeric title of the page to be created

1 Parent (this page has a "create from template" button)
    1.1 Child one
    1.2 Child two
    1.3 Child three, etc.

The parent page has a "Create from template" button. When trying to use the `countChildren` macro when generating the `Child one` pages and so on from a Template, the returned number of children is zero. I suspect the macro doesn't recognize `1 Parent` as a parent page anymore. 

How do I refer to the `parent` page which calls the template in a macro?

## @noparams

#set($pageCount=0)
#foreach ($child in $content.children)
    #set($pageCount = $pageCount + 1)
#end
$pageCount  

[Stephen Deutsch · Accepted solution]

Pretty easy change:

## @noparams

#set ( $pageCount = 0 )
#foreach ( $child in $content.parent.children )
    #set ( $pageCount = $pageCount + 1 )
#end
<p>$pageCount</p>

[Axel Holene]

Thanks for the reply. This doesn't work in a template... Does the template page know its parent before it is "properly" created, i.e. it is available as a new page in the page tree? 

[Stephen Deutsch]

Unfortunately it doesn't, it only knows it as soon as the page is saved. At the moment of creation before it is saved, it acts as an "orphaned" page. I don't think there's anything that can be done about this :(

[Axel Holene]

Thanks for the effort, mate :-) 

The more I try to translate what I consider pretty simple requirements when it comes to reducing administration by using Confluence, the less impressed I am. 

[Stephen Deutsch]

One thing that's nice about user macros is that just about nothing is impossible :)

This might work for you:

## @noparams

#set ( $Long = $generalUtil.systemStartupTime )

#set ( $templateParent = "" )
#set ( $referer = $req.getHeader("referer") )
#if ( $referer.contains("fromPageId=") )
    #foreach ( $part in $referer.split("&") )
        #if ($part.contains("fromPageId=") )
            #set ( $templateParent = $part.replace("fromPageId=", "") )
        #end
    #end
#end
#set ( $templateParent = $req.getParameter("fromPageId") )

#if ( $templateParent != "" )
    #set ( $parentPage = $pageManager.getPage($Long.parseLong($templateParent)) )
#else
    #set ( $parentPage = $content.parent )
#end

#set ( $pageCount = 0 )
#foreach ( $child in $parentPage.children )
    #set ( $pageCount = $pageCount + 1 )
#end
<span>$pageCount</span>

[Axel Holene]

It works! Great! So thankful! :-D 

Where on earth did you find documentation for the magic you perform here?