Create from Template and Specify Parent Page

[MarkC]

I really like the Create from Template macro, but it has its limitations. Here is what I want to do:

When the user clicks the button, a new page is created using a defined template and it is created under a specific parent page in, perhaps, another space.

For the macro itself, the user would have to specify the following parameters:

• Space - The space where the template will be created (it would be nice to know how to create an autopopulating field as the user types space names)
• Parent Page - The page within the space where all new content created from the template will be placed under
• Template - The template to be used, of course
• Button Text - The text on the button

Essentially it's nearly identical to the Create from Template macro, but it would allow a user to specify the parent page within a space under which the content is added.

I have tried, albeit unsuccessfully, to accomplish this. The best solution I have right now (as a band-aid until we have something more stable) is to create a new page using the template under the parent page. I then use that link as the place the button directs the user. It works, but it's sloppy and not easy for other users to make use of.

Has anyone created a macro like this? I can do most of the above, but I can't get the space to populate on its own or figure out how to specify the parent page. Any and all help is much appreciated!

[AdrianaF]

I need to be able to specify the parent page. Desperately need this feature. Thanks!

[Angus Law]

I've just used this workaround in Confluence 5.5 and can confirm it works:

Take the URL from the normal create from template macro and change

&fromPageId=#######

to the id of the desired parent. You can then use a macro such as UI Button from RefinedWiki UI Toolkit to make it look nice :)

[Donata De Luca]

Can you elaborate please? Would love to use a workaround, but there is no URL in the Edit window for "Create from template" Macro. Thanks.

[Angus Law]

Apologies - I should have made it clear. This workaround doesn't actually use the "Create from template" macro, aside from to generate the original "create" URL. Here's the steps (should hopefully make more sense): 1. Add the Create from Template macro as usual, customising whatever settings you want, and preview or save the page 2. Right click on the button you just created and click "Copy link address" 3. Paste this address somewhere, e.g. Notepad. Example address: http://your-confluence-server/?templateId=4030475&spaceKey=TEST 4. Find the Id of the desired parent page (e.g. 123456) 5. Add &fromPageId=####### to the end of the address you pasted to Notepad (the example above would now be http://your-confluence-server/?templateId=4030475&spaceKey=TEST&fromPageId=123456) 6. Add this new address as a link to your Confluence page. Links aren't quite as fun as buttons, hence why I recommended using the UI Button from RefinedWiki UI Toolkit

[Donata De Luca]

Thanks, Angus! One other change I needed to make to get it to work: - I needed to actually click the button which the Macro created in order to get the full URL of https://[your-confluence-server].atlassian.net/wiki/pages/createpage-entervariables.action?templateId=[yourTemplateID]&spaceKey=[yourSpaceKey] - From there I could add the &fromPageId=[yourPageID] to the end, so the full URL looks like: https://[your-confluence-server].atlassian.net/wiki/pages/createpage-entervariables.action?templateId=[yourTemplateID]&spaceKey=[yourSpaceKey]&fromPageId=[yourPageID]

[Angus Law]

Good to hear you got it working - that'll teach me not to test my examples!

[Chris David]

I've tried this work around, but it seems that no matter what I put for the &frompageid when I click on the new link it always takes me back to the space homepage (doesn't even try to let me enter the template). I have full access to the space and am on 5.6.4. Any ideas?

[eyrisone]

I'm having the same issue as Chris. I'm on a hosted instance. Any ideas?

[Angus Law]

Did you both follow Donata De Luca's workaround above? My answer has a mistake. Otherwise I'm afraid I don't know!

[Honda_Mx_Racer]

When I use the UI Button Hyperlink button and add the URL, it replaces the '&' with '&'. Did you have this same problem? If so, what did you do to get around the issue. 

[Wanjae Shin]

@Honda Mx Racer I used the same macro and didn't encounter the issue...thanks everyone!

[Mgk Seqis]

The "Create from Template" Macro was linked to following URL:

https://[my-confluence-server]/?templateId=10780750&spaceKey=ABC&newSpaceKey=ABC&title=%3CPageTitle%3E

I added the fromPageId mentioned by Angus and took the Path mentioned in Donata's post.  This modified string creates a new template with the given Parent page: 

https://[my-confluence-server]/pages/createpage-entervariables.action?templateId=10780750&spaceKey=ABC&newSpaceKey=ABC&title=%3CPageTitle%3E&fromPageId=10457192

Thank you both!

[Greg Der Ananian]

I'd like to specify it be created in the same space but with no parent page. Is there a PageId for "none?"

Or, can have new pages in a space default to orphan pages?

[Kelly O'Connell]

I have used this workaround for years, but with the latest updates released, it no longer works! Has anyone found a new way to specify the parent page for a Create from Template macro?

[Joshua Geldenhuys]

@Kelly O'Connell mine is also broken since the latest updates. I did some very brief troubleshooting and, unfortunately, haven't found an additional workaround yet.

Strangely - I found that it still works if the user chooses to open the link in a new tab (at least on Chrome browser).

[Michael Schönacher]

i have the exact same problem! 
appreciate any hints - thx!

[joel strouts]

Well damn, this feature would be greatly helpful but the workaround suggested here does not work for me either.

[Deleted user]

I am having the same issue. The generated link works fine if I paste it into the browser or if I right click the link in the published page and select to open in a new window. If I click the link I get taken to an empty page with the default title but none of the template content is loaded and I get a connection error. I have tried removing the "s" from "https://" and every url variation I can think of. Has anyone had any more luck? 

[Sarah Sand]

Just wanted to say thank you all again for answering this question! It's been very helpful to my team.

And as a recap, here's the URL we use with the RefinedWiki UI Button:

https://[your confluence url]/pages/createpage-entervariables.action?templateId=[template id]&spaceKey=[space key]&newSpaceKey=[same space key]&title=%3C[whatever you want the default page title to be]%3E&fromPageId=[page id]

[Andrey_Aristarkhov]

Thanks! Works for me even with latest confluence updates!

[Pierre Zurmely]

Same here for version data center 6.13.10. Thank you!

[Ulrik Schoth]

Still works for Confluence version data center 7.13.11.

Thank you all! 👍😃

[Monique Khairuliana[ServiceRocket]]

ServiceRocket's Linking plugin can do this through its key macros "Add page" or "Add page via Form". Both macros let you use a template as a source and specify the target parent page for the new page. There are also three special values that you may set it with:

• @self - the current page.

• @parent - the parent of the current page.

• @home - the space home page.

The app is available on Server, Data Center, and Cloud.

Hope that helps!

Monique
-ServiceRocket product team

[Wierzchowska Natalia]

To have the button instead of the link, you can use wikimarkup macro with html and css code. I will publish it once I have it

[FredrikLiljemark]

Do u have it? ;)

[FredrikLiljemark]

@Wierzchowska Natalia do you have it now? =)

[Ulrik Schoth]

Hi @FredrikLiljemark

to create a button, the following code works for me. Just paste it into the body of an HTML macro.

• PLACE-THE-LINK-HERE needs to be replaced with the link, e. g. as described in @Sarah Sand's post.
• For more information on button design, see Atlassian.

<button onclick="openTemplateLink()" class="aui-button aui-button-primary" title="Create from template with configurable parent">Create new page</button>

<script>
function openTemplateLink() {
window.open('PLACE-THE-LINK-HERE', '_blank');
}
</script>

[FredrikLiljemark]

Thanks !=)

[Laura Minniear]

It seems ridiculous to not be able to use a template to create a child page. Either add an option to use template when using the "+" method of adding a child page from the space navigation sidebar, or have the Template button create the page under the current page you're on instead of at the top level of the space. The latter was the way Confluence worked at my last company, but perhaps that was customized behavior?

Templates are useless if you can't create pages where you want them to go. It is not feasible to have to create the page and then move it every time.

[Laura Minniear]

UPDATE: I realized that when you create a child page using "+", you can apply a template on the new page. Use the template panel that shows on the right to select and apply a template - it will convert the new page immediately.

[Tim Graffam]

While I was able get the "fromPageId" workaround to work, has anyone figured out how to do this using variables for the page title? For example, I would like the title to always fill in with @currentDate instead of something static.

Thanks!

[Adrian Bardue]

I have tried to create a link with multiple of the above workarounds and it has not worked for me at all (either creating and old, blank page without the template or just not working). Can you tell me exactly what format you used that you found to work? Thank you!

[Joshua Geldenhuys]

If you're one of those who tried this workaround without success, here's a small tip that worked for me:

1. Copy the same URL example as posted by @Sarah Sand and edit with your specifics on a Notepad:

https://[your confluence url]/pages/createpage-entervariables.action?templateId=[template id]&spaceKey=[space key]&newSpaceKey=[same space key]&title=%3C[whatever you want the default page title to be]%3E&fromPageId=[page id]

2. Remove the "s" from "https" at the beginning of the URL. Your URL would then be "http://......."

3. Copy the modified URL into your proposed web link.

4. Save and test.

If you want to go as far as creating a button-like feature, follow the tips posted above. I just added a "+" emoticon from the Confluence editor, which looked quite neat as well.

[Daniel Vlad]

Thank you for your instructions. It works.

Now I would like to achieve that the mask with the placeholders appears first, when the template is called and not just the empty template.
Any idea how I could realize this?

[Piotr Pilakowski]

Hi all - thanks for your answers, they were really useful.

I just have one more question about how to deal with blueprint links. Especially How-to article.

Link to such template looks slightly different as it adds dialog box part to the url:

https://[confluence url]?createDialogSpaceKey=[SpaceKey]&createDialogBlueprintId=63826ec0-686e-4aa7-94ec-9c5e7ea39f7c

I tried to add "fromPageId=[pageID]" in here (in all possible places) but it seems to ignore it.

The dialog box appears and new page is created as a children to a current one.

Anyone has the idea how to deal with Blueprints?

[Jason Mckelvey]

Yes. This.

I am unable to use the suggested URLs because we use BlueprintIds. I've been messing with a lot of options, but cannot seem to figure it out. Hoping someone will be able to shed some light on this use case.

If I figure something out, I'll be sure to respond.

[Ron Holmes]

Another option to get your link into a button is to embed it in a div.

I used the following style information
background-color: #EEE; border-radius: 4px; border: solid 1px;color: #DDD;padding: 5px 15px;text-color:white;text-align: center;text-decoration: none;display: inline-block;font-size: 14px;margin: 4px 2px;cursor: pointer;

[Chris Morlier]

I did something similar using the background color macro, which has an option to specify the class.  So I used the same classes that were applied to the button that was created by the Create from Template macro.

Just add the class "aui-button".  I originally had the "create-from-template-button" class as well, but after testing I found it changes the behavior, so leave it out.

This gave me a link that looks like the button, and presumably would work if the theme is changed.

To get the full effect, you will also need to change the text color of the hyperlink to black.

[Chris Morlier]

Just tried with the Div Macro as well, and worked the same.  However, I couldn't get the hyperlink color to change with the standard text color tool.

[EPS Software Engineering AG]

Have a look at the Page Tree Creator Plugin. It can do multiple Template Pages, has a Search & Replace process and in the button you can set the parent page (even in an other space ) as destination.

https://marketplace.atlassian.com/plugins/eps.focuspro.PageTreeCreator/server/overview

With the Space Tree Creator plugin you can create a space and then copy the Page Tree to this new space.

https://marketplace.atlassian.com/plugins/eps.focuspro.SpaceTreeCreator/server/overview

[MarkC]

Paid plugins are not an option for us, as it just continues to drive up the cost of the tool that should be able to do many of these things.