Hide or show different links to different user groups

[MarkC]

We have a situation in which we produce two different sets of documentation for the same application. One set is for internal use only and is stored in its own space. The other is for external use primarily (though some internal users will look at it or refer external users there via a link).

We also have a landing page (we do not use the dashboard) from which we present an organized list of our content. On this page, we want to show the link to the internal and external documentation to internal users (we'll call that group wiki_internal). However, if an external user logs in, we only want that group (we'll call them wiki_external) to see the external documentation link.

Currently, if a user doesn't have permissions to access a specific link, it is grayed out but still selectable and the user receives a Not Permitted message. When that happens, we get inundated with emails about permissions not being correct (it's a real headache).

We have found the Visibility Plugin, but it does not function as we would like it to. Users can click Tools > View Source, and then see the hidden content on the page.

Is there a way to show/hide specific links for groups and not have those secrets of magic revealed in the View Source option of Confluence? If not, have any of you tried a different approach to solving this problem? On a side note, which could work to solve this problem, can you specific a different landing page for each group?

[Davin Studer]

You can use the visibility macro in conjunction with the include page macro. If they view the source they will not see the actual documentation. Also, the included pages will not show up in search if they do not have rights to those pages.

[MarkC]

That could work, but the page that is being included could still be searched. So the users could still access it and see what is hidden. If I apply restrictions to that page, it can't be pulled in by the Include Page macro because the user may not have permissions to view it.

[Davin Studer]

If it is combined with the show if macro is does work. I've done it berore. Take the example below. Let's say I have set restriction on the page Development Home to only be viewable to the group confluence-administrators. I have the include page macro wrapped by a show if macro that will only render the include page if the user is part of the confluence-administrators group. If you are not part of that group then the include page macro never gets run.