Drop-Down Menu's in Confluence Template

[Subhash H]

Drop-Down Menu's in Confluence Template

As far as I am aware the below options are currently available for implementing drop down menu in a Confluence template:

1) Use of Template variables with “List” option to List out all the values of the Drop-Down. The only hitch’s I see is that there will be 2 “passes” of the person filling the template. In the first pass, the person will have to fill in the template variable values. Also, I see that Confluence automatically puts in the “ Page Template Wizard” as well as “Step 2: Fill in template variables” wordings in the first pass at the top of the screen. Is there a way to customise the wordings of these or remove these? Also, once I have created an artefact from the template using template variables, I am unable to edit the value of the variables if I want to change it once I have created the artefact. This is not a good user experience!!

2) Use of User Macro to create a Drop Down menu or use HTML Code for Drop Down: This does not require 2 passes, but it allows the user or anyone with access to the page to modify the value of the Drop down any time after the actual artefact is created from the template. In addition, for such a use case, the user experience is not good and can be confusing as the person creating the artefact from the template will see the actual macro or HTML code of the Drop Down during the creation process?

If someone has a good solution for drop down menu's in Confluence templates, with minimum hitches or "side effects" please let me know.