Serious question: is this product in Beta?

[Micheal Planck]

I am new to Confluence so I don't know, But my experiences so far are kind of astounding.

For instance, I am writing a page template. Part of the page will have a button that creates a child page from a global template.

I add the /Create from Template macro. It does not allow me to select any template; the template name field pops up nothing and cannot be edited.

I create a regular page and add the button I want and select the correct template in the template name field.

I then copy that button from the regular page to the template page. Trying to edit the button on the template page yields the same behaviour; the template name field is blank and un-editable. It appears to point to nothing.

However, when a page is created from the template, the button works as expected.

So: I can create templates that contain buttons that make pages from templates; but only if I create the button in a regular page and then paste it into the template.

This is just one example. There are so many others. Children Displays in Heading style 1 or 2 add vertical scroll bars for one or two pixels of overlap (regardless of how many children are displayed) but work properly in H3 style. Placeholder text cannot be edited after being placed; you have to delete it and retype it. Images - elements of web pages from thirty years ago - cannot be included in page templates. The "Add labels" dialog box does not have a "Close" button; unique of any other dialog in the application, it is closed by clicking anywhere outside of its borders. #Including the contents of a page on another page changes the spacing between elements, yielding a different appearance than on the original page. The only choices for page width are impossibly wide and huge amounts of white space on either side (this could be solved simply by left-justifying the window). Copy-pasting elements tends to reset their formatting to default. You cannot even copy an entire space. And more.

This list is from literally two days of using this product.

How is this considered a product in a state worth shipping?

[Jack Brickey · Accepted solution]

Hi Michael, welcome to the Community!

to answer the title question - no Confluence is not in beta. It has been used successfully by a large number of companies and individuals for many years. The cloud version has gone thru a pretty large update over the last year and, like other SAS product changes frequently. I would have to explore the specific observations before I can comment but not in a place where I can do that at this moment. I recommend using the search bar in the Community to see if your questions are already being discussed elsewhere and if not you might want to open a new question. If you feel there is a bug you might reach out to Atlassian Support. 

[Jack Brickey]

If you have not already you might check out the docs. Here is one article on creating templates but there is much more info in the docs on your topics above - create-a-template 

[Micheal Planck]

Atlassian doesn't need me to report a bug. They just need to use the product for fifteen minutes and the bugs swarm.

I accept your answer, since it is the answer; but I remain amazed at the sheer sloppiness of the product. It is a content formatter written by people who have no sense of format.

(Note: the Add Label dialog does have a close button - when you are editing a page. It just doesn't have one when you are editing a template. This is actually worse; it means it is not an oversight or a failure of design, just bad code.)