Is there a Confluence macro to limit or show the number of characters in its body?

[Steffen Opel _Utoolity_]

I have a use case that requires many identically structured pages with a fixed multi column/row layout. For the moment, I'm resorting to a custom page template, which works fine as such. However, one aspect of that predefined layout is that several text areas have a hard maximum character limit.

Is there a macro (or any other approach) to limit or at least show the number of allowed characters in a text area so that the page template users are guided regarding the character limit while editing the page?

[Boris Berenberg - Atlas Authority · Accepted solution]

I would start by just using a panel macro which says the max number. But off the top of my head, I don't know of any macro which does what you want.

If you're on Server, then a user macro may be an easy solution? If cloud, then writing a connect add-on for this should also be fairly simple.

[Steffen Opel _Utoolity_]

Thanks @Boris Berenberg - Atlas Authority - seems a no is the correct answer then.

The request is for Server right now, but would apply to Cloud scenarios too down the road. I've scheduled a backlog item for our team now, let's see whether we can up with something (looks like the typical 'hardly enough pain to tackle it' issue though ...).

Meanwhile, showing the allowed number of characters in 
a panel macro might indeed be a helpful workaround for scenarios where the layout/visual impact doesn't matter, good idea!

[Boris Berenberg - Atlas Authority]

At the end of the day, no macro can modify whats going on in the editor. The closest I can say is you could have a macro that displayed the character count, and try and detect if it's being used in a preview view, and then have text entered into a property instead of macro body. If you don't detect preview view, you just show the text, and no count.

[Stavros_Rougas_EasyApps]

If you need a character count for Confluence our app does that inline Word Count by Easy Apps.