Atlassian Confluence 5 Essentials

Table of Contents

Atlassian Confluence 5 Essentials

Credits

About the Author

About the Reviewers

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Preface

What this book covers

What you need for this book

Who this book is for

Conventions

Reader feedback

Customer support

Downloading the example code

Errata

Piracy

Questions

1. Getting Started with Confluence

Understanding the architecture

High-level architecture

Supported browsers

Data storage

Confluence Installation directory

Confluence Home directory

Installation options

Standalone and WAR distributions

Operating systems

Databases

Application servers

Installing Confluence

Installing Java

Installing PostgreSQL

Creating a user and a database

Installing Confluence

Unpacking Confluence

Configuring Confluence Home

Configuring the port

Configuring e-mail JNDI resource

Configuring HTTPS

Generating a certificate

Configuring Tomcat

Redirecting traffic to HTTPS

Configuring Confluence as a service

Starting Confluence

Installation wizard

Setting up the e-mail server

Summary

2. User Management

Understanding authentication

Password authentication

Seraph

Adding users

Manually adding users

Open registration

Inviting users

Managing groups

Creating groups

Adding users to groups

Editing group membership from the user details screen

Editing group membership via the group management screen

Administrating users

Searching for users

Using the simple user search

Using the membership search

Editing user details

Resetting the password

Public signup

External user directories

The effect of directory order

Limitations when using external directories

Build-in user management

Editing directories

Connecting to an LDAP directory

Connecting to LDAP

Server settings

LDAP schema settings

LDAP permissions

Advanced settings

User schema settings

Group schema settings

Membership schema settings

Connecting to a Crowd directory

Connecting to Crowd

Server settings

Crowd permissions

Advanced settings

Connecting to JIRA for user management

Connecting to JIRA

Server settings

JIRA server permissions

Advanced settings

Summary

3. Creating Content

The basic concepts

Spaces

Pages

Blog posts

Comments

Adding global spaces

Adding pages

Adding a new page to Confluence

Creating a page from another page

Setting the location of a page

The Confluence editor

The toolbar

Formatting and autocomplete

Autoformatting

Autocomplete

Autoconverting

Drag-and-drop

Adding content

Styling

Macros

The macro browser

Editing macros

Macro keyboard shortcut

Panels

Page layouts and sections

Using page layouts

Using Section and Column macros

Tables

Editing a table

Keyboard shortcuts

Sorting the table

Attachments

Attaching files to a page

Attachment version management

Downloading attachments

Embedding attachments

Multimedia

Office files and PDF

Drag-and-drop

Images

Displaying an attached image

Displaying an attached image on a different page

Displaying an image from a remote web page

Changing the image's appearance

Aligning your image

Displaying images in a gallery

Links

Linking to Confluence pages

Using Autocomplete

Using the Insert Link dialog

Using copy and paste

Linking to web pages

Linking to an anchor

Linking to a heading

Linking to an undefined page

Drafts

Changing the draft interval

Resuming editing a draft

Viewing unsaved changes

Working with content history

Viewing the page history

Importing content

Importing a Word document

Importing a Word document as a single page

Importing a Word document into multiple pages

Exporting content

Exporting a single page

Exporting a space

Summary

4. Managing Content

Organizing your spaces

Changing the order of pages

Setting the page order to alphabetical

Orphaned pages

Archiving a space

Using Confluence labels

Content labels

Attachment labels

Using space categories

Viewing labels

Using labels to display content

The Content by Label macro

Tracking content

Watching content

Setting notification options

Watching a page or a blog post

Watching a space

Managing your watches

Favorites

Adding favorites

Viewing favorites

Searching Confluence

Quick navigation aid

Full and advanced search

Did you mean

Filtering results

Searching labels

The search syntax

Summary

5. Collaborating in Confluence

Collaborating with other people

Mentions

Share content

Like

Status updates

Updating your status

Managing status updates

Displaying status updates

Working with notifications

Managing your notifications

Included notifications

Configuring workbox notifications

Enabling workbox notifications

Including notifications from JIRA

Sending notifications to another Confluence server

Working with tasks

Working with personal tasks

Working with tasklists

Managing tasks on a page

Confluence on your mobile device

Viewing

User profiles

Searching

Notifications and tasks

Notes about the mobile interface

Summary

6. Securing Your Content

Accessing the content

Global permissions

Updating global permissions

Overview of the global permissions

Comparing the administration roles

Notes on global permissions

Space permissions

Overview of the permissions

Managing space permissions

Setting default space permissions

Page restrictions

Page restriction hierarchy

Inheritance

Managing page restrictions

Confluence security

Secure administrator sessions

Atlassian security advisory

Limiting access to Confluence administration

Best practices

Summary

7. Customizing Confluence

The Confluence dashboard

The Confluence home page

The welcome message

Restoring the default welcome message

Removing the Get Started text

Including content from another page

Themes

The Default Theme

Configuring the theme

The Documentation Theme

Configuring the theme

Look and feel

Confluence logo

Space logo

Color schemes

Advanced customizing

The default space content

Custom HTML

Custom stylesheets

Site layouts

Summary

8. Advanced Confluence

Templates

Using templates

Creating templates

Space templates

Global templates

Adding content to your template

Importing templates

Checking installed template bundles

Making templates available for usage

User Macros

Managing user macros

Writing user macros

Writing a user macro template

A descriptive header

Parameters

Template code

Including another macro

The Page Properties macro

Shortcut links

Creating a shortcut link

Using shortcut links

Summary

9. General Administration

Working with add-ons

The Marketplace

The Universal Plugin Manager

Online and offline modes

Information transmitted by the UPM

Switching to offline mode

Finding new add-ons

Installing add-ons

Installing directly via the Marketplace

Installing by file upload

Updating add-ons

Removing installed add-ons

User requests for add-ons

Viewing user requests

Disabling user requests

Content indexing

Rebuilding the indexes

Changing the indexing language

Application links

Adding an application link

Editing an application link

Space project links

Configuring authentication

Trusted applications authentication

OAuth authentication

Basic HTTP authentication

Using Application Navigator

Adding a new link

Managing links

Getting support

Atlassian Answers

Atlassian Support

Atlassian Support tools

Raising a support ticket

Submitting a support request via Confluence

Atlassian experts

Summary

10. Extending Confluence

The Atlassian Plugin SDK

Installing the Atlassian Plugin SDK

Prerequisites

Setting up the Atlassian SDK

Commands

Creating a new plugin

Adding a new module to your plugin

Running a plugin in an application

Running a specific version of an application

Using the Maven Command Line Interface (CLI) plugin

Running a standalone application

The help command

Maven

The pom.xml file

The plugin descriptor

Using a development environment

Installing Eclipse on Windows

Installing the Maven Eclipse plugin

Configuring the Maven plugin

Building your first plugin

Creating the plugin project

Updating the generated code

Adding plugin metadata to the POM file

Verifying your Confluence version

Cleaning up the plugin skeleton

Adding a new macro module

Implementing the macro interface

Implementing the getBodyType and getOutputType methods

Implementing the execute method

Building, installing, and running your plugin

Adding resources

Releasing your plugin

Setting distributionManagement

Releasing your plugin without revision control

Plugin module types

Generic module types

Confluence-specific module types

The plugin module types in detail

XWork

The module descriptor

The action class

Web Sections

The module descriptor

Web Items

The module descriptor

Online resources

Summary

Index

Atlassian Confluence 5 Essentials

Atlassian Confluence 5 Essentials

Copyright © 2013 Packt Publishing

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews.

Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy of the information presented. However, the information contained in this book is sold without warranty, either express or implied. Neither the author, nor Packt Publishing, and its dealers and distributors will be held liable for any damages caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by this book.

Packt Publishing has endeavored to provide trademark information about all of the companies and products mentioned in this book by the appropriate use of capitals. However, Packt Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information.

First published: June 2013

Production Reference: 1030613

Published by Packt Publishing Ltd.

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ISBN 978-1-84968-952-6

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Cover Image by Eugenio Dal Monte (<e_dm@fastwebnet.it>)

Credits

Author

Stefan Kohler

Reviewers

Gregory Kneller

Alek Lotoczko

Jurriaan van Reijsen

Emma Rush

Acquisition Editor

Andrew Duckworth

Lead Technical Editors

Amey Varangaonkar

Savio Jose

Technical Editors

Jalasha D'costa

Pushpak Poddar

Amit Ramadas

Project Coordinator

Leena Purkait

Proofreader

Chris Smith

Indexer

Tejal Soni

Graphics

Abhinash Sahu

Production Coordinator

Shantanu Zagade

Cover Work

Shantanu Zagade

About the Author

Stefan Kohler is senior Atlassian consultant for 42, a company that specializes in Atlassian and is known for its expertise in the field. Stefan was in a big way responsible for setting 42 on Atlassian's path and making sure the company has a solid plugin development, consultancy and support offering. Stefan is a much sought-after consultant, requiring his agenda to be planned months ahead.

Within the community, Stefan is a person of some renown, having set up the Dutch chapter of the Atlassian User Group in 2010. He has written a number of award-winning add-ons for Confluence and Stash, and has scored an Atlassian prize for the best website. On Atlassian Answers, Stefan is a highly appreciated contributor with his useful answers and suggestions.

Stefan has extensive experience with designing and deploying Atlassian solutions. He has got Atlassian solutions working for many customers, in various industries, such as Software Engineering, Healthcare, Government, and Finance.

I would like to thank my family and friends for all their support and understanding during this project. A special thanks goes to Eric Meijer and 42 for making it possible for me to take on this project. I would also like to thank all the editors and reviewers for their efforts and much appreciated feedback.

About the Reviewers

Gregory Kneller started as a software developer in 1991, focusing on developing and implementing order-, task- and content-management systems for business customers. Before 200x, the main instruments for such kind of tasks were MS Access, Turbo C, and Borland Delphi. In 2000, he changed to web development and created a couple of custom CMS and data management systems with a web interface that were used by his customers.

Gregory's main concerns are usability, value for business, and team collaboration. He started implementing DHTML and XMLHttpRequest for developing frontends in 2003. These technologies were very new at that time; however, they promised rich user interfaces and communication features for project teams.

During that time, Gregory was looking for the best tool that has a web interface, which provides good usability, enough flexibility in order to adjust it to a variety of business requirements, and which does not require deep development at its customization. He probed many web tools such as Drupal, Typo3, Mambo-Joomla!, Tikiwiki, and a few others.

In 2007, being a Front Office Support Engineer in Deutsche Bank, he got acquainted with the Atlassian tools, JIRA and Confluence, and he decided that they are exactly the instruments he was looking for.

Since 2010, Gregory works as an independent contractor and he provides services of business customization, technical change management, enterprise integration, technical project management, and advanced administration for JIRA and Confluence. Alstom, UNFCCC, and ZDF are a few names among his clients.

Alek Lotoczko is an IT professional with more than 30 years' experience. For the last decade, Alek has specialized in the field of intranet and digital workplace solutions, with an emphasis on exploiting social networking elements within the corporate firewall environment.

Alek has worked with global companies in the banking, marine transportation, manufacturing, and logistics sectors.

Jurriaan van Reijsen has an M.Sc. degree (1982), and is a learning technology consultant at The Courseware Company in the Netherlands. He has implemented Confluence in several of the top 100 Dutch companies and helped those organizations to devise their knowledge strategy. Moreover, Jurriaan is a Ph.D. researcher at Utrecht University. His research focuses on the influence of knowledge networks on organizational learning, and his papers have been published in the proceedings of several leading international conferences. Jurriaan studied Information Science at Utrecht University and graduated on the topic of Knowledge Management.

Emma Rush is an Atlassian product specialist. She began as a developer, and now works as a consultant and technology evangelist, helping organizations to use applications to manage their development life cycle and business processes.

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Preface

Atlassian Confluence 5 Essentials is a practical hands-on guide introducing you to Atlassian Confluence, a powerful enterprise collaboration tool for teams to create, share, and discuss their content.

This book will show you how to install and manage your own Confluence installation. You will learn how to configure and customize Confluence to adapt it to your organization and add value to your business. The chapters in this book are structured to guide you through all the key aspects of managing and using Confluence.

You will start by setting up your own Confluence installation and will be introduced to all the key features in subsequent chapters. With each chapter, you will learn important concepts such as creating engaging content, sharing information, and engaging users to collaborate with each other.

This book is an in-depth guide to all the essential aspects of Atlassian Confluence. Packed with examples and step-by-step instructions, this book will help you become a Confluence expert.

What this book covers

Chapter 1, Getting Started with Confluence, will guide you through the installation process of Confluence and will give you a local installation, which will be used throughout the book. By the end of the first chapter you should have a running Confluence installation.

Chapter 2, User Management, covers how you can invite and register new users to join you in the content collaboration process. We will also go over how to connect Confluence to an existing user directory such as LDAP.

Chapter 3, Creating Content, is maybe the most important chapter, as content is king. We will go through the concepts of spaces, pages, and blog posts to explain how to add content to Confluence. Confluence's rich text editor has many features and in this chapter we will learn to master a large part of those by creating our first pages.

Chapter 4, Managing Content, focuses on how to find relevant content and how to use watches to keep track of you content. Confluence comes with a powerful search engine, which we will know all about by the end of this chapter.

Chapter 5, Collaborating in Confluence, goes into Confluence on a day-to-day basis. We will go into how to involve people in the content creation process using mentions and shares, and how to keep track of things using tasks. If you are on the road, Confluence mobile will keep you in touch with the latest content, tasks, and notifications.

Chapter 6, Securing Your Content, covers the options available for keeping your private information private. Confluence allows permissions to be set on a global, space, and content-specific level, giving us the fine-grained security an enterprise solution needs.

Chapter 7, Customizing Confluence, will go over the different features for changing the look and feel of Confluence so that we can add some company branding to our instance or just to a space.

Chapter 8, Advanced Confluence, covers many different advanced topics such as content templating, and working with metadata and keyboard shortcuts.

Chapter 9, General Administration, goes in-depth to find and manage add-ons to Confluence. Add-ons can add extra functionality or integrations. If you have problems with your Confluence installation and need support, this chapter will guide you to getting support from Atlassian or a local expert.

Chapter 10, Extending Confluence, focuses on some basics and possibilities of add-on development. By the end of the chapter you should know where to start if you would like to build an add-on, and on which level we can extend Confluence.

What you need for this book

The Confluence installation used in this book will be the Windows standalone distribution (ZIP), which you can get directly from Atlassian at www.atlassian.com/software/confluence/download.

At the time of writing, the latest version of Confluence was 5.1.1.

You will also need several additional software libraries including Java SDK, which you can get from http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/index.html and PostgreSQL, which you can get from http://www.postgresql.org/download/.

Who this book is for

If you have just started with Confluence, as a user or administrator, this book will give you a running start and teach you everything you need to know. Even if you have been using Confluence for a while now, this book can give you new insights and tricks on how to use Confluence even more efficiently.

Conventions

In this book, you will find a number of styles of text that distinguish between different kinds of information. Here are some examples of these styles, and an explanation of their meaning.

Code words in text are shown as follows: Create a file called local_machines_only.conf in your Apache configuration directory.

A block of code is set as follows:

config-link>/plugins/config/alpha.action

16 width=16>

/images/icons/config.gif

Any command-line input or output is written as follows:

netstat –a | find /I 1990

New terms and important words are shown in bold. Words that you see on the screen, in menus or dialog boxes for example, appear in the text like this: Clicking the Next button moves you to the next screen.

Note

Warnings or important notes appear in a box like this.

Tip

Tips and tricks appear like this.

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