What just happened to Confluence Cloud?

[Lucy Minato]

On a related topic, I've requested for the ability to turn off/on the Contributors column on the "Pages" page given a row of avatars means nothing to our users who just want to get to a page our of product user guide.

Add your vote here if it's something you could use: https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/CONFCLOUD-57521

(And yes, there's no denying it, I am using this forum to canvas votes for my JIRA issues :-)

[Joe Koberg]

What user task was improved in speed or completed successfully more often with this change?  

It's bad. We want textual information so we can scan and summarize.

[Caroline Bartle]

Hi @Robert Lauriston - user names were removed from page history a little while ago as part of the introduction of collaborative editing to Confluence Cloud.

When multiple users edit a page and these changes are published as a version, all according avatars are displayed in the 'changed by' column. The removal of names was implemented to allow for additional display space for multiple avatars. We do encourage users to upload a profile pic so that they can be identified visually on such a page.

[Robert Lauriston]

Put the names back on the Page History.

[Josh Mings]

Thanks Robert. Server isn't an option for us right now. Appreciate the suggestions though.

[Robert Lauriston]

If you move your customer-facing docs to a Confluence Server instance, you could use Scroll Viewport to publish the content to a web server any way you like, or if you don't care about publishing changes in real time, you could use Scroll HTML Exporter.

[Josh Mings]

Nice quote! :)

True, Confluence does seem better used for internal documentation purposes at this point, especially with Jira alongside. I think what most of us are after is a way to hide all the wiki bits from external users - just show the page tree and page!

[Robert Lauriston]

I presume "no author limit" means you can get as many author licenses as you want.

Ask them for the full price list, there are various mix-and-match options. I'm the only writer here so the plan that works for me is the Business version, which allows unlimited reviewers.

Yikes, there's a quote from me at the top of the pricing page. I did give them permission but I didn't expect it to be quite that prominent.

We're still using Confluence Cloud for internal stuff like specs and status reports and I still like it better than other wikis. The new UI is less efficient but for those relatively simple tasks it hasn't caused any big problems yet.

[Josh Mings]

Thanks for the tip on Paligo. We've been evaluating new tools and this looks interesting. Started the trial. Pricing is confusing though $119 per Author for small team, but states 'No Author Limit'. 

[Robert Lauriston]

Am I the only one who is truly astonished ...

I've seen it twice before, with the rounding of space logos and the announcement of the discontinuation of the Documentation theme.

That's one of the reasons I switched from Confluence Server + Scroll plugins to Paligo for authoring customer-facing documentation.

[Stéphane Veraart (Devoteam)]

Please add me to the list as well. I'd be more than happy to provide feedback also based on what key-users at my clients think of it.

[Till Noever]

Thanks for that, Brian. Truth is, I have no idea what the overall user-base picture is. Just thought I'd bring this up. As I said, my own sample size is small, and it's always iffy to make broad inferences from small numbers (a.k.a. 'faulty generalization').

And, BTW, I don't consider us 'complainers', though self-selected we are! 'Critics' sounds so much better. 'Defenders Of User Rights' sounds even better (alas, that makes us into the 'DOUR' ones). Also, methinks Atlassian has far less flattering attributes for us when they talk among themselves, even though these would of course never make this forum. Would love to be a fly on the wall there. lol

[Brian Houston]

You make a valid point that we are a self-selecting group of complainers - and the people who are happy with the new version are unlikely to show up in this discussion.  

However, I have been using Confluence for a few years now in various organisations - and find it unlikely that their current direction - (de-emphasis on page tree, emphasis on blogs etc) is the majority use case for the platform.  

[Brian Houston]

Agree.

[Brian Houston]

Agree completely.  I would imagine that the use case for Confluence as a blogging platform is small - but perhaps the Atlassian team sees this as an area that they're trying to push into more.  

It's a shame from a product management aspect because Confluence works so well as a  documentation / support / wiki application.  

Hubristic overreach maybe?

[Josh Mings]

"many many" - I don't believe it for a second. Of all the examples we looked at before deciding to go with Confluence, all were used as manual/documentation. None were using Blog and Tutorial. First thing seen was the page tree.

It's simple Atlassian. Let the use case decide what goes there.

[Lisa de Araujo]

And, by the way, I tried to edit my comment typos and got this: 

[Lisa de Araujo]

Above, LIron said "There are many many use cases of it disturbing and taking focus away from the overview page, for some types of spaces."

I'm curious about these use cases and types of spaces. I have always thought confluence was a documentation / support / wiki application. What else do people use it for. I'm clearing not very imaginative, because I can't think of any use that requires a "home" page that needs such total focus that navigation becomes an unnecessary distraction. 

[Bruno Miretti]

And we can add: anonymous users won't see anything there except "All spaces" making complicated to move back to a previous space !

Please vote for this one: CONFCLOUD-57410

Thanks

[Abhay Patil]

The "new experience" just doesn't cease to surprise one with instances of complete lack of UX basics! Now, I see the icon of the space that I work in. WhenI  hover over it, it shows name of the space. Great so far. But when I click on it - expecting to get to the space overview page, it pops up a menu  of "Recent spaces"! And it doesn't stop there. The "Recent Spaces" DOES NOT SHOW the space that I have been working in exclusively all the time! :(  

POSTSCRIPT: As I think more, however non-intuitive this behavior appears to me, it sure is a "design feature". I.e. the space icon shows the space I am in, and when I click on it, it shows me recent spaces that I may choose to go to. Oh well.

[Lucy Minato]

Here are a couple more JIRA tickets regarding features in the new-look Cloud Confluence that I'm not happy with:

https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/CONFCLOUD-57521

https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/CONFCLOUD-57523

Please add your vote if you agree. Thanks!

[Michael Corvin]

+1  Amen!

[Josh Mings]

Nope, that's not a static copy. It's the regular page tree. We just link people to the top page of the page tree, so the page tree shows, instead of the root homepage of the space.

If they hit the 'Pages' link at the top, they do go back to the (useless) page contributor list, but can't do anything about that.

[Robert Lauriston]

Is that a static copy of the page tree, so you have to update it any time the tree changes?

[Josh Mings]

Yes, it does take longer. I ended up just making a shortcut in my browser to the primary page - saves me two clicks.