Confluence 5

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Your trial is set up and you're ready to go.  You have administrator permissions for your OnDemand trial.

Throughout this tutorial we will highlight whether a feature is available to all users or requires specific permissions.

 All users can do this

 Only Administrators can do this

Space Administrators can do this

We'll point out where there are differences between our OnDemand and Installed versions of Confluence with this icon  (warning).

In this step you will create a space, create some pages and add content to a page, including images, links and macros. 

Create a space

Let's jump in with both feet and create a space.  Spaces are where you create pages, blogs and collaborate with your team. 

In this example you will create a space for a team working together on a project. It will be used for gathering requirements, recording meeting notes, making decisions and sharing files.
  1. Choose Create Space > Blank Space.  
     
  2. Enter a name for your space, for example 'Project Space'.
  3. Confluence creates a space key for you - this forms part of the space URL.
  4. Choose Create.

Your space appears with some sample content on the homepage. It's as easy as that. You can have as many spaces as you need.

Later in this tutorial you will look at customising the look of your space, but for now, let's create some content.

Create some content

Pages are where you create your content.  You can create a blank page, a blog post, or use a blueprint to solve the blank page problem. 

In this example you will use the Meeting Notes blueprint to create some meeting notes in our new project space. 

To create meeting notes: 

  1. In your project space choose Create.
     
  2. Choose Meeting Notes and Create.
  3. The meeting notes page appears, enter some content.
  4. Choose Save. 

Confluence creates a link for all the meeting notes in your space on the Sidebar. 

Blueprints provide you with ways to create common content quickly. The best way to learn about them is to try some out.  They contain instructions and wizards to guide you through the process.  

Create a blank page

Next let's create a new blank page to record some background about our project. New pages are created as a child of the current page, so we will return to the homepage first. 

  1. Go back to the space homepage (hint use the Home link in the breadcrumb, or use the space name or logo in the sidebar).
  2. Choose Create > Blank page.
  3. The blank page appears, name the page 'Project Background' and Save.

In the next step we will take a closer look at the editor and the types of content you can add to your pages. 

Edit the content of a page

In this example you will edit your new 'Project Background' page and add some content. 

To edit an existing page:
  1. Go to the page you just created - you can use the sidebar or search to get to a page.
  2. Choose Edit (or use the keyboard shortcut E). 
  3. The editor appears - now get editing! 

Our aim in this example is to use the editor tools to create a page that looks like this.  Click the image for a bigger view.

Headings and text

Add some text to your page and try out the heading styles and other formatting.   In the example above we added headings for Purpose, The Team and Useful Links. 

Confluence uses styles, so you will notice there is no Font or Size tools.  This keeps your Confluence content looking nice and consistent.

To apply a style, highlight the text and choose a style (for example paragraph, or heading) from the style drop down menu on the toolbar. 

Images

Now let's attach an image to your page.  In this example we will add a photo of our project team.

  1. Choose Insert (+) > Image.
  2. Browse for an image file on your computer. 
  3. Choose Insert.

Your image appears on the page.  When you select the image the Image the Properties toolbar appears.  This toolbar allows you to:

  • Change the size of the image on your page (in our example we chose 300px, users can click to see the full size version).
  • Add a border.
  • Add an effect (in our example we chose Properties > Effects and selected the 'Taped' effect).
  • Add a title and alt text.

Images are attached to your page, like attachments to an email. You can also search for images attached to other pages, or use images from the web. 

Creating links is easy in the Confluence editor.  You can link to external sites, other confluence pages and spaces, recently viewed pages, attachments, anchors in your text - you name it!

Let's add Useful Links heading to our page, then add a link to the Meeting Notes index page that we created earlier. 

To add a link to another Confluence page:

  1. Type Useful Links, select it then choose Heading 2 from the style dropdown menu on the toolbar.
  2. Enter down to a new line and choose Link on the editor toolbar. 
  3. Choose Search.  
  4. Type the name of the page you want to link to (meeting notes) - the quick search will appear as you type.
  5. Choose the page from the list.
  6. Enter the link text (if you want it to be something other than the page name).
  7. Choose Insert.

You can also make images a link - select the image and choose Link from the image properties toolbar. 

Page layouts

The example page had content in two columns. This was achieved by modifying the page layout. 

Try it now:

  1. Choose the Page Layout button on the editor toolbar.
  2. A section is added to your page, dotted lines indicate the section boundaries.
  3. Choose one of the 2 column layouts from the toolbar to apply it to the section.
  4. Your existing content will appear in the left column, leaving the right column free to add more content. 

You can add as many sections as you need, and each section can have a different column layout. For this example, you only need one section. 

Macros

To provide some in-page navigation, based on the headings on your page, you can add a Table of Contents Macro. This is great for long pages with many headings.  

To add the table of contents macro:

  1. Place your cursor in the right hand column you created in the previous step.
  2. Choose Insert > Table of Contents. 
  3. Customise your table of contents using the options provided.
  4. Choose Insert.

Save your page. Your page should now have some headings, an image, a link to another Confluence page and a table of contents. 

More about Macros

Macros extend what's possible on a Confluence page.  There are macros for navigation, for special formatting, for reporting and adding media - there are even macros that integrate with other Atlassian products like JIRA. 

To add a macro to a page:

  1. Edit your page.
  2. Choose Insert > Other Macros. 
  3. Choose a macro from the macro browser - you can use the categories or search field to help you find a macro.
  4. Enter any parameters the macro might need. 
  5. Choose Insert.

The macro appears as a placeholder in the editor. Select the placeholder to edit or remove the macro.  Once you save your page you will see the macro content in all its glory.

Check out these great macro examples:

The Widget Connector macro allows you to display a wide range of web content on your Confluence page such as video, twitter feeds, slideshows. In this example we will add a YouTube video.

To add a YouTube video to your page the fast way:

  1. Go to YouTube and grab the URL for the video (hint: use the 'Share' option, not the page URL).
  2. Paste the URL on to your page.
  3. Confluence recognises the URL and adds the Widget Connector macro for you.

You can add more than just videos, you can content from Twitter, Flickr, SlideShare, Scribid, Vimeo and many more.

A Confluence demonstration video is shown here - using the Widget Connector macro.

The View File macros allow you to display PDF and Office documents that are attached to your page.

To use the macro the fast way:

  1. Grab a PDF or Office document that is saved on your computer.
  2. Drag it into the editor.
  3. Watch while Confluence attaches the file to your page and adds the macro.

A Powerpoint macro showing a sample presentation attached to this page is shown here:

The JIRA macro allows you to display a list of JIRA issues. Use the wizard or your own JQL query to populate the Macro with issues.

You'll need JIRA linked to Confluence to use this macro.

We won't be using the macro in this example, but here is an example from our Release Notes showing what the macro looks like. Click to see the larger version.

Pages vs Blogs

Before you move on, let's talk about the difference between a blog, a blueprint and a blank page.

Blogs are pages that play by blog rules.  Blog posts cannot be restricted or moved, they are visible to other users as soon as you post, and have their own watch and notification settings. Blog posts appear under the 'Blogs' link on the sidebar, whereas pages appear under 'Pages' on the sidebar.  

Blueprints are pages that are created from special templates, and are designed to make it easy for you to add common types of content to your pages. Many blueprints appear under their own link on your space sidebar. 

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