How can I opt out from the new editor?

[Henry Snijders]

I just activated a new Confluence instance for a customer but the way it looks and performs  now I cannot sell it, is it possible to opt-out until the product is stable and up to speed?

[Dario B · Accepted solution]

@Henry Snijders @James Walker 

You can contact support to have the old editor enabled on your instance.

See the comment on CONFCLOUD-65695 for more details: 

Hi all,

Thanks for all the feedback on this ticket. Given the amount of requests we've started to explore what a potential quick win may look like to re-introduce this. That being said, we still can't guarantee a time frame for this - we will make sure to update this ticket as we know more on our end.

In the meantime, if you have the legacy template available - which most of you should have - you can keep using that to create new pages and still keep using this feature. If you don't have that template, you can reach out to support and we'll be happy to enable it for you.

Thanks,
Avinoam

[James Walker]

My experience in attempting to do this.  Firstly I was asked

May we know the reason as to why you wish to opt out of the new editor?
Any changes that you are currently having issues with?

[James Walker]

I re-explained my frustration and referenced this issue for background.

I got:

Thanks for sharing your thoughts with us! This kind of feedback is really important to us, so we can keep tracking what do our customers need.  I'll definitely bring this up to our product team. With the new editor, we are aiming for a simpler design and WYSIWYG.

We do have a lot of feature requests with regard to the new editor and our product team is working on improving it. If you're interested, here's Confluence Cloud editor roadmap page that you can watch

 [ url deleted, for some reason putting it in causes this message to fail to post]

The aim here is to give the transparency of the feature that will be rolled out on the new editor to our users. The old editor will soon be deprecated to make way for the new editor so the rolling back is not an available option.

If you have more question and would like to communicate directly with our Product Manager, you can drop your feedback here on our community page:

• [ url deleted, for some reason putting it in causes this message to fail to post]

Having said that, we definitely understand these issues have a major impact on you and your teams. We'll review it with our product management team. We need to assess with them on any possibility if we can review the rollback of the new editor for you in the interim. If we do go with this option which is to roll back to the old editor, we are just merely postponing the actual roll back until the cutoff date. The new editor will eventually fully roll out to all and there would no longer be a way to defer.

As such, we will need to confirm again the following details just to ensure we are aligned. We would also like to get an understanding of the exact business impact this one feature loss has on your instance. Could you share with the missing major functionality that you have with the new editors that are blocking you from performing tasks and hugely affecting your business? Appreciate if you can share with us, in detail, how can we do better with the new editor and how can we improve to meet your business case? This is just additional feedback around the impact and severity this is having on your teams/business as we want to review this with our product manager and the team and see if there's anything we can help address for your case here.

We do appreciate all your feedback here. The next steps are that we will compile the feedback and book in time to deliver/review with our product manager to assess. We will then follow up with you.

This makes the whole experience more frustrating.  Perhaps your support people need to start talking to each other. 

The workaround of using an old page and copying it doesn't work for importing content, and hides the number of people who are actively unhappy with the new editor.

[Dario B]

@James Walker  ,

I have found your support ticket and I am leaving a comment for the SE in there. 

However, just to clarify, do you still have the possibility to create new pages using the old editor or not at all?

I am asking because the confusion here can be due to the fact that having the old editor enabled is one thing, while opting out from the new one is another different thing, and in the support ticket you are asking for the second one. 

Cheers,
Dario

[James Walker]

At this point just being able to create the old-editor pages would be nice.

Thanks.

[James Walker]

I'm not sure how I can tell if I have the ability to create "old editor" pages.

I click the create page button and it creates a "new editor" page, and there doesn't seem to be anywhere I can choose an alternative.  Is there a template that I should select?

[Dario B]

@James Walker , 

Check if, when creating a new page, you can still choose the old editor like in the below screenshot:

If you don't have it, please send the same screenshot to the support ticket and make clear that you are not asking for a deferral on the adoption of the new editor (Fabric), you want to have the possibility to create new pages using the old editor (TinyMCE) instead.

I have also left a message to the Support Engineer as well as the rest of the team to make sure they are all on the same page.

Hopefully this will clear out the confusion on this topic.

Cheers,
Dario

[James Walker]

Thanks, I don't have that as an option, will update my request accordingly

[Dario B]

You are very welcome @James Walker !

I have also had a chat with the Support Engineer assigned to your case and indeed I can see he is now asking consent to access your instance so that he can proceed fixing this for you.

Please give him consent to proceed, and let me know in case anything else will be needed from my side.

Cheers,
Dario 

[Sascha]

@Dario B activating the old editor template seems not to be available in free plans because contacting the support is not available in free plans, is that right?

Confluence Free comes with Community Support. Upgrade to a paid plan to get one-on-one customer support.  Learn more

I'm working with a new team and we wanted to use the free plan for the start. I'm sure we will switch some day. Might be at day #1 to get rid of the new editor if that's right. Or switch to another tool with a cool editor...

[Shannon S]

Hello @Sascha,

Thank you for following-up on this, and welcome to Atlassian Community.

You can definitely still request the old editor template for your Cloud Confluence Free site. That's not a problem at all. You just need to raise your support ticket through Community, and a member from the Community Technical Support team will be in touch with you. From there, we can raise the request internally and get the template added to your site.

You'll want to make sure that you're logged into Community with the same email address that you use to administer your Cloud site. That way, we can confirm which Cloud site you are referring to.

If you have any trouble, can you please let me know? I'm more than happy to help you with this.

Take care,

Shannon

[Sascha]

Thank you Shannon!

[James Walker]

The whole new editor is trash.

[James Walker]

Things that are still (Feb 2020) unusable:
 - Images have fixed sizes, with no ability to render as their native size.  Makes any image with text blurry

 - Exceedingly limited set of colours.

 - Tables are 100% width

 - Random jumping of the cursor to the top of the page when editing

 - Macro addition screen doesn't contain all macros, try adding a /panel some time.

 - Linking to attachments not possible without copy/paste the link from the browse attachments page.

 - Randomly invisible blocks (macros? who knows) in the middle of the document that you only find by drag-selecting and then deleting

That's a few things just off the top of my head.  For all I know there are actually workarounds for these things, but the interface is so counterintuitive in most circumstances that finding the workarounds or "correct" way to do things is exceedingly time consuming.

[James Pittman]

In addition to the above, the #1 pain point for me are the blocks of text, the page layout sections.  This is a must-have feature; I use it in every single page I create/edit, and it was removed in the new editor.  The nagging prompts to convert my old pages to the new editor (and break them) make me worry for the day when I will be forced to the new editor (or more likely a new documentation solution).

[James Walker]

Worth noting that in the 2 years since this comment was originally made the only thing that has changed is that tables can now vary their width, to one of 3 fixed widths, not to a size that perhaps makes sense to the page creator.

Most importantly:

 - Images are still unusable if they contain text

 - The linking of attachments is still the same very poor experience

 - Editor is still very finicky with hidden content and forcing the cursor to strange places.

[Michael_Abbott]

I am also fighting with the joy that is the new editor, and I think I have found a nice workaround:

1. Find an old page that still uses the old editor
2. Copy it
3. Rename it and move it where you want your new page and edit merrily as before.

Until Atlassian notice this ugly hack and deliberately disable it we should be in business for a trifle longer.

It seems that someone is in love with the new garbage, alas :(

[Daniel_M]

Sadly, there may be new confluence instances that do not have a trace of the old editor!

[Dario B]

@Daniel_M @Michael_Abbott,

Please take the time to review the whole thread before posting outdated solutions/workaround.

As mentioned in my comment below, you can contact support in order to have the old editor re-enabled into your instance.

For more details please see:

1) The comment on CONFCLOUD-65695: 

Hi all,

Thanks for all the feedback on this ticket. Given the amount of requests we've started to explore what a potential quick win may look like to re-introduce this. That being said, we still can't guarantee a time frame for this - we will make sure to update this ticket as we know more on our end.

In the meantime, if you have the legacy template available - which most of you should have - you can keep using that to create new pages and still keep using this feature. If you don't have that template, you can reach out to support and we'll be happy to enable it for you.

Thanks,
Avinoam

2) The article How we roll out the new editor in Confluence:

Will the legacy editor eventually go away?

Yes. However, the legacy editor will likely still be around for a bit as we understand that existing content needs to keep working. With that being said, eventually, we do plan on moving away from the legacy editor. We’re actively working as we rollout to understand what the eventual sunsetting process will look like and we’ll be asking you for how you think it should work so we can make it as smooth as an experience as possible, with ample communications and change management supporting material.

We sincerely hope that this post helps to better inform everyone of what the rollout process looks like.

Please reach out with any feedback so we can constantly continue improving the rollout experience!

Thanks!
Avinoam

I hope this help clarifying.

Cheers,
Dario

[Alberto T_ Simon _TC_]

Dario, I beg to disagree: Michael Abbot's solution is not outdated: is a solution that does not require someone to get in touch with Atlassian's support only to get the old - and MUCH BETTER - legacy editor back.

The new editor appears to be one more of the half-backed "solutions" Atlassian throws in our laps. How a toolbar that take away the option to make a text monospaced, or that give me less text colors than before can be called good?

You guys should spend more time listening to the customers, instead of thinking about escuses.

[James Walker]

Also, See my experience above in attempting to get Atlassian to re-enable the old editor.

[Dario B]

@Alberto T_ Simon _TC_ ,

That's actually correct, I used a wrong wording, the workaround is still actual if you don't want to get in touch with support.

@James Walker ,

I have answered to your separately

[Eoghan Murphy]

@Dario Bworth adding the clarification that came out a few days after your last post from @Tiffany that the legacy editor is no longer going away anytime soon

The legacy editor isn’t going anywhere

We know that many of you are concerned about all the changes and what they may mean for the future of the legacy editor. We have no plans to end-of-life it in the foreseeable future, and if and when we do, we’ll make sure to explicitly communicate it well in advance.

So everyone on these threads at the very least should get a ping before that happens

[James Walker]

More things the "new and improved and generally so much less enjoyable" interface can't handle: tables inside table cells.

[Cheryl A. Minton]

[Cheryl A. Minton]

Now if only there were an option like that for creating new templates. The new editor is really awful, and I can't create a full page template at all.

[Cheryl A. Minton]

At this point, I'd settle for an option to copy an old template.

Actually, that's a feature I think would be useful even not taking this terrible new editor into consideration.

[Cheryl A. Minton]

Or hey, how about allowing us to convert an existing page to a template... without an add-on? That would work for me too.

Seriously, though, Atlassian, this new editing experience is as horrible as the new Jira experience. Both should be scrapped tout de suite.

[Shannon S]

Hello Cheryl,

Thank you for sharing that with our users. Do note, however, the availability of that template depends on when a Cloud site was created. The option may not be available for all users. 

In fact, the new editor will eventually roll out to 100% of Cloud sites, and it won't be possible to change back.

It's imperative that we receive any feedback from you regarding exactly what the new editor is lacking for you you personally. You can cross-reference the Cloud Editor Roadmap for missing and expected features, schedule some time with our Product Manager 1:1, or send via the feedback form in the editor.

Thank you again!

Regards,

Shannon

[Daniel_M]

The old editor is far more powerful. I somehow have managed to have a single page on the old editor and I am able to nest macro bodies and exploit full plugin functionalities with additional tweaking, something the new editor finds impossible (which are 99.9% of spaces). My company heavily relies on Confluence as a wiki resource and we are being forced to either migrate to another product, or Confluence Server as a result.

I would absolutely love the feature to convert back to the old editor, *pronto*.

[Shannon S]

Hi Daniel,

Welcome to the Community! It's nice to have you join us.

I'm really sorry to hear that you also have been having issues with the new editor. FYI, any pages you created on the old editor, before the new one was rolled out, will remain on the old editor. We have been rolling out the new editor gradually over a period of several months, so for many sites, the pages are not all yet on the new editor. Once the new editor is completely rolled out, it won't be possible to use the old editor to create new pages.

If your team is having difficulty changing over to the new editor, please let us know by sending that feedback via your Confluence site, or schedule some time with the Product Manager with the link that I shared on Wednesday.

Thank you for your feedback!

Regards,

Shannon

[Daniel_M]

Hi Shannon,

I'm essentially forced to copy and paste pages with the old editor, which is quite unfortunate!

The core issue is functionality. I am at a loss that the old editor, while being less user-friendly and arguably inferior aesthetic, possesses superior functionality and plugin versatility.

The server instance is being advocated by developers and vendors I have been corresponding with; I am definitely cautious but I am optimistic corrections will be made. 

How much interest needs to be gathered before the feature is pushed into production? In particular the old editor can nest bodied macros, something my team is heavily reliant on.

https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/CONFCLOUD-68323?_ga=2.203188759.700518073.1578914586-1238934043.1576576135

[Shannon S]

Hi Daniel,

Before a feature is implemented, there are a few things that can influence this, with customer interest only being one factor. The full list is included in our Implementation of New Features Policy:

When we plan a release, we use many factors to help decide which suggestions to implement, including:

• Customer feedback - there are many ways we listen for your feedback: 

  • formal customer interviews and other research activities
  • events like Atlassian Summit, developer conferences, and road shows
  • in-product feedback from evaluation and EAP (early access program) releases
  • comments and votes on issues in https://jira.atlassian.com/, our public issue tracker
  • questions and posts on Atlassian Community.

• Support team insights - our support team know which issues are the most challenging, and most common for customers.

• Solution partner insights - our solution partners help us better understand real-world customer deployments, especially for customers at scale.

• Product analytics - analytics are used from Cloud customers and opted-in Server customers, which helps us understand how existing features are being used.

• Product strategy - our long-term strategic vision for the product.

The nested macros that you refer to are listed on our Confluence Cloud Roadmap as currently gathering interest so I think the best influence you can have now is to talk to the team directly about what you require from that feature and what's stopping you from using the editor.

Regards,

Shannon

[Shannon S]

Hello Henry,

Thank you for reaching out! It's disappointing to hear that your Confluence Cloud instance isn't performing as expected. I would recommend raising a ticket with the Cloud Support Team directly, so that they can have a look at your instance and confirm if there's not anything else that can be done to improve your performance.

When you ask if you can opt-out, can you let me know exactly what you mean by that? 

Regards,

Shannon 

[Shannon S]

Henry,

Please disregard, I see now in your title you want to opt-out of the new editor; I hadn't seen that specific bit in your summary.

You might be able to to use the old editor by clicking the + (plus sign) in the left hand sidebar and selecting legacy editor template.

If you have any other issues, please be sure to send the Editor team your feedback by using the feedback option from the menu when clicking on your avatar in the bottom left-hand corner!

Thank you for your understanding.

Regards,

Shannon

[Henry Snijders]

Hi Shannon, I have/see no option to use the legacy template. I understand that things change over time but don't throw away the child with the bathwater (dutch expression ;-)  in other words keep the good stuff. The main problem I am facing at the moment is that all the pages that were filled with excel tables with let's say 10 columns are now displayed in portrait view, I can overlook only 2 columns, and when i choose full width I get 2 columns with more space. It is a pity that with all the broad screens nowadays I can show 2 columns. De facto all previous work in this field will become useless.. probably same goes with displaying jira filter content in landscape.. (not tried yet). I was showing the previous view to my customer and he was very enthousiastic but now I cannot convince him to use confluence and jira.. 

[Shannon S]

Hello Henry,

Thank you for confirming - then it is likely not available on the Cloud instances anymore, as we are rolling out the new editor to instances and fewer old features will be available.

Can you clarify exactly how these Excel tables are inserted in your page? I assume by Excel you mean that you've embedded Excel sheets into the Confluence pages, and we're not dealing with Confluence tables. Would you be able to confirm that?

Please feel free to share any screenshots of the problem in UI, if possible. You can edit your data to anonymise it if needed.

Regards,

Shannon

[Paul_J_McLeod]

Hi,  I've just kicked off a new Confluence space and I'm absolutely of the same mind as Henry Snijders above.

.

WHERE IS THE 'UNDEFINED LINK' CLICK TO CREATE PAGE FUNCTION?

This is the core of Wiki functionality??

Also I can live without CamelCase, but really no Brackets???

Where is the ability to see the raw markup??

Is confluence trying to copy 'website building' platforms and thinking it's progress?

This is sorely disappointing.

Having sweat blood to bring a client onto the platform, now to find it hobbled right in the editor is gutting.

Henry, I hope they fix it soon.

People who use Wiki to fuel content should not have to put up with some garden variety 'website editor' function.

Very annoyed Confluence user from way back. 

Now wondering what I'll do.

NB: I am not seeking a return to wiki markup.. it seems there are technical reasons that's been removed. BUT I can't for the life of me think why you would not build in support for the 'Undefined Link' functionality.  It's broken and it should not be,

[Shannon S]

Hi Paul,

Thank you for your reply. 

As you discovered, there's a feature request to bring back undefined page links below:

• CONFCLOUD-65634 Cannot create "undefined page link" in Fabric Editor

I see that you've already voted and commented on it, but I wanted to share it in case anyone else also needed this feature back.

For additional feedback, please make sure to share it with our Product Manager in the ongoing thread at Try out the new editing experience, or schedule some time with him 1:1 by booking a meeting on his calendar.

Thank you again!

Regards,

Shannon