General questions about Confluence

[Alessandro]

Hi, I am new and I am evaluating Confluence as a wiki for our small company (about 50 employees).

I already created some spaces and pages and the general architecture of Confluence fits my needs.

But I have the following questions:

1) If I can't find something I need out-of-the-box, the only solution would be to program in Java for the Atlassian SDK? I need for example some "cliend side code", for example a table that has sortable columns (when you click on a column header, the table's rows are reordered), or a search box that filters out column row. Does this require lot of efforts?

If I want to create a form, users will click and then I process the inputs.... do I need lot of efforts into atlassian sdk??

2) Can I add "normal Java code" for a page, or anything must be "caged" into Confluence architecture/framework of "pages"? For example: a jsp page that outputs "<p>hello world , it's + $DateTime</p>" ??

I saw that I need to download a macro just to change the font.

Do I need a macro for everything?

3)I have a Workgroup LAN (But there is a windows server 2016, but we are not in domain)

What should I do to have Confluence in http://mywikiname.com ? is it possible?

If I have other question I will append to this discussion

[Thomas Schlegel]

Hi @Alessandro,

you can do a lot of things with simple user macros. I've written an article about an example user macro which is filtering table data on your Confluence page:

https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Confluence-articles/The-Admin-s-tale-User-Macro-filtering-a-Confluence-table/ba-p/459369

You can find other tiny examples for user macros in last year's advent calendar article: 

https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Confluence-articles/The-Admin-s-Advent-Calendar/ba-p/681215

(it may not be the right time of the year for advent calendars, but the macros are still running ;-) )

[Alessandro]

thanks very kind, I have a look

[Fabienne Gerhard]

Hi @Alessandro welcome to this wonderful community

1. When creating a table they are sortable in view mode using the header row - also see here
   For searching function etc. you will definitly need an addon - for example Table Filter and Charts for Confluence and others you can find in marketplace.
2. You can write your own macros - have a look for that here
   And also use search function here in community - many amazing people here share their codes and help you finding a solution for problems.
3. Sorry can't help you with that, but I think a domain should absolutly be possible. Did you have a look on general configuration Base-URL

Good luck and hope I could help a little bit

[Alessandro]

thanks very kind

I think I will dig into macro/plugins, it's inevitable.

As a personal opinion, I usually try to make all by my own, without depending on company1 for plugin1 (and license/fees), company2 for plugin2, etc...

I want to avoid a mess of costs, and I try to make things simples and straighforwards :D like the plans of count Olaf :D

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

1) There's an option between "off the shelf" and "write my own" - look in the marketplace for something.  There are several "advanced table" apps in the marketplace for Confluence.  You can usually get to it from within Confluence - go to admin -> manage add-ons -> find new.

Confluence is a wiki, aimed at free-format documents, it is not designed for "forms".  But you can create templates to help guide your users on how to create good pages.  If those are not structured enough, have a look in the marketplace for "forms"

I should add I could be biased here - Adaptavist have an app for "confluence forms", which my sales guys want me to mention all the time.  To be fair to other vendors, it's not the only one.  Do your research and check out the range, we might not be what you need

2) Not java, but you can write "user macros", which contain formatting and can call the java api inside Confluence. 

But yes, "a macro for everything" is not far off.  You can think of Confluence as having three main parts.

• The structural bit - the part that goes around all your content, providing menus, sidebars, search, users, reports, the app framework etc
• The content - your actual words on a page (plus formatting and calls to other stuff)
• Macros - the way to upgrade your content from simple text to calculated and/or formatted displayable content

3) You need to

• Get your name registered with DNS, so that when a user puts http://mywikiname.com into a browser, they land on your Confluence server
• Tell your Confluence server that it lives on http://mywikiname.com (this is the "base url")
• There is usually more to do than that.  Most of us run Confluence behind a proxy, which means some configuration stuff needs doing in the installation (editing connections in Confluence's server.xml, telling the proxy what to route, etc), but gives us many advantages.  This depends on how you want to run it though.

[Alessandro]

thanks very kind

In fact I already found something in the marketplace that solved a need.

I have a PostgreSQL server, and I had to do a simple query over a table (like "select field1, field2, field3 from table1"). I've found a macro/plugin, that does that and it's also open source.

But if I want to change something, even trivial (like the text of column headers), it's too complex for me to analize the java code (and all the framework/maven/spring/tomcat/whatever). I downloaded the SDK and it's working in case I need it.

But I think it's inevitable.

Making a Wiki from scratch it's impossible for me, open source alternatives are too complex just to install, and also requires programming. Basically any platform at some point requires programming in the form of plugins/macro/whatever.... so one will crash into how that platform was engineered to be extented.

[Davin Studer]

For "trivial things" you can use user macros and include html/javascript/css inside the user macro. There is also an html macro that comes disabled by default but can be turned on which will allow you to put html/javascript/css directly into your wiki page.

[Alessandro]

If all I need is access to confluence server in my corporate LAN, do I need/benefit a reverse proxy?

Do you use a reverse proxy just for internet access/load balance?

if you use for internet access, isn't it better to go cloud?

[Davin Studer]

1. The biggest use case for the reverse proxy is for setting up SSL. I have found onour server that Tomcat doesn't handle SSL connections super well. It's a bit slow, so we put an IIS reverse proxy in front to do the SSL and it got way faster and CPU load went down. But you would probably see the same kinds of benefits with Apache, or NGINX as a reverse proxy as well. We're a Windows shop which is why we used IIS.

2. It depends on what you want to do. Cloud is much more locked down. You cannot create user macros, install much of the marketplace add-ons, keep it off the internet, etc. But you don't have to manage the server or update the platform yourself. So, it's a trade off.