Comments Tab Theme

Added by Laura Kolker, last edited by Laura Kolker on Nov 10, 2008  (view change) show comment
Name Comments Tab Theme
Vendor Atlassian Software Systems (Website)
Authors Laura Kolker, Brendan Patterson
Homepage http://confluence.atlassian.com/display/CONFEXT/Comments+Tab+Theme
Issue Management http://developer.atlassian.com/jira/browse/CCTT
Continuous Integration n/a
Categories Themes
Most Recent Version 1.3-RC4
Availability Confluence v2.9-m5 to v2.9
State Prerelease
Support Unsupported Plugins
License Freeware / Open Source (BSD)
Price Free
Release Docs http://confluence.atlassian.com/display/CONFEXT/Comments+Tab+Theme
Java API Docs n/a
Download Source https://svn.atlassian.com/svn/public/contrib/confluence/comments-tab-theme
Download JAR plugins-comments-tab-theme-1.3-RC4.jar

Description/Features

Comments Tab Theme allows the page comments to be displayed and interacted with in a separate tab.

Installation

with Confluence 2.8+

There are two parts to a successful Comments Tab Theme install:

  1. Install the plugin.
  2. Make the necessary changes to your Confluence's core so that all the features work as desired.
You must override some Confluence core files for all Comments Tab Theme features to work

Features that will not work correctly without changing your Confluence's core include:

  • RSS feed links
  • Dashboard links
  • Email Notifications links
  • The Add Comment menu item

Installing the plugin

Changing Confluence core resources

The general idea is to explode your Confluence jar, overwrite a handful of the files, re-jar up the Confluence jar, and restart your Confluence with the new jar.
The following are step by step instructions, including shell commands that may make understanding this process easier.

See also: Editing files within .jar archives

Try this out on a staging Confluence first

If this sounds scary, that's because it is!
Don't try this for the first time on your production Confluence. Make sure you understand all the steps involved by testing it out on a staging Confluence first. Remember to save your original Confluence jar, so you can revert back to it easily.

  1. Make some directories to make this easier. 
    $shell$ mkdir tmp
$shell$ cd tmp
$shell$ mkdir confluence
$shell$ mkdir commentstab-resources
  2. cp your confluence-2.8.x.jar to the confluence dir
    1. and explode it
    2. and move or remove the jar 
      $shell$ cp path-to-confluence/WEB-INF/lib/confluence-2.8.0.jar confluence/.
$shell$ cd confluence
$shell$ jar xvf confluence-2.8.0.jar
$shell$ rm confluence-2.8.0.jar
  3. download the zip file to the commentstab-resources dir
    1. and unzip it
    2. and move or remove the zip 
      $shell$ cd commentstab-resources
$shell$ unzip commentstab-core-resources-1.3-RC2.zip
$shell$ rm commentstab-core-resources-1.3-RC2.zip

      Your directories should look something like this:

      .
./commentstab-resources
./commentstab-resources/com
./commentstab-resources/plugins
./commentstab-resources/templates
./confluence
./confluence/com
./confluence/database-defaults
./confluence/doc
./confluence/fonts
./confluence/META-INF
./confluence/net
./confluence/org
./confluence/plugins
./confluence/services
./confluence/templates
  4. copy the resources to confluence,
    1. and jar your confluence 
      $shell$ cp -R commentstab-resources/* confluence/.
$shell$ cd confluence
$shell$ jar cvf ../confluence-2.8.0-cctt.jar *
  5. apply the new jar to your confluence
    1. shutdown your tomcat
    2. mv the confluence-2.8.0.jar in WEB-INF/lib either to another dir, or rename with a .bck as the suffix.
    3. cp your newly jar'd changed confluence to WEB-INF/lib
    4. restart your tomcat 
      $shell$ cd path-to-confluence-tomcat/bin
$shell$ ./shutdown.sh
$shell$ cd ../confluence/WEB-INF/lib
$shell$ mv confluence-2.8.0.jar confluence-2.8.0.jar.bck
$shell$ cp ~/tmp/confluence-2.0.1-cctt.jar .
$shell$ cd path-to-confluence-tomcat/bin
$shell$ ./startup.sh

Global vs. Space theme?

The Comments Tab Theme can be used as a space theme instead of a global theme, if desired. Note: however, that the Dashboard links to comments in spaces using the Comments Tab Theme will not link to the correct location. (They will direct to the page's View screen rather than rendering the desired comment.)

with Confluence 2.2 to 2.7

  1. Download plugins-commentstab.jar for 2.2.x or plugins-comments-tab-theme-1.2RC1.jar for 2.3.
  2. Copy plugin-comment-X.jar into [Confluence-Dir]/confluence/WEB-INF/lib/.
  3. Restart Confluence.
  4. Turn the theme on in the administration panel.
    RSS and Notification links

    Special Installation Instructions are required for RSS and Notifications.

Additional Installation steps to perfect RSS and Notification links

RSS feeds and Notifications are generated for new comments. In order for the links to point to the Comments tab instead of the View tab, some Core Atlassian files need to be overwritten.

  • Shut down Confluence
  • Backup the existing core files. This is for your own piece of mind. If you're feeling lucky, you can skip this step
    • cp [Confluence-dir]/confluence/WEB-INF/classes/com/atlassian/confluence/rss/CommentRenderSupport.class [My_Backup_Dir]
    • cp [Confluence-dir]/confluence/WEB-INF/classes/templates/email/html/addcomment-notification.vm [My_Backup_Dir]
    • cp [Confluence-dir]/confluence/WEB-INF/classes/templates/email/text/addcomment-notification.vm [My_Backup_Dir]
  • Get the new versions of the files
    • cp the plugin JAR to a temp directory: cp plugins_commentstab.jar [My_Temp_Dir]
    • go to the temp dir: cd [My_Temp_Dir]
    • unjar it: jar xvf plugins_commentstab.jar
  • Overwrite the old files with the new files
    • cp [My_Temp_Dir]/com/atlassian/confluence/rss/CommentRenderSupport.class [Confluence-DIR]/confluence/WEB-INF/classes/com/atlassian/confluence/rss/CommentRenderSupport.class
    • cp [My_Temp_Dir]/templates/email/html/addcomment-notification.vm [Confluence-DIR]/confluence/WEB-INF/classes/templates/email/html/addcomment-notification.vm
    • cp [My_Temp_Dir]/templates/email/text/addcomment-notification.vm [Confluence-DIR]/confluence/WEB-INF/classes/templates/email/text/addcomment-notification.vm
  • If you haven't done so already, cp the plugins jar into WEB-INF/lib
  • Restart Confluence

Or use ant to install the plugin

ant build will build a fresh plugin JAR
ant install will install the JAR into the confluence you've indicated in your project properties
ant override-core will override the core files necessary to make RSS and Notifications work properly

What about the Dashboard?

Dashboard Comments Links from the Recently Updated list will go to the correct tab only if you set the Global Theme to be Comments Tab Theme.

Screenshots

Screenshots

Versions

Plugin Versions

Version Date State License Price
Show description 1.0 (#1) 17 Oct 2006 Prerelease Freeware / Open Source (BSD) Free

Contributors

Show description 1.1-RC1 (#2) 19 Oct 2006 Prerelease Freeware / Open Source (BSD) Free

Contributors

Show description 1.1-RC2 (#3) 21 Nov 2006 Prerelease Freeware / Open Source (BSD) Free

Release Notes

Bug Fixes

  • CCTT-6 Reply to Reply
  • CCTT-4 Condition to check that the space is using the theme before displaying the tab
  • CCTT-7 Dashboard links to comments point to Comments tab
  • CCTT-2 Notifications links point to Comments tab (Requires special installation)
  • CCTT-8 RSS links point to Comments tab (Requires special installation)

Contributors

Show description 1.2-RC1 (#4) 20 Feb 2007 Prerelease Freeware / Open Source (BSD) Free

Release Notes

Features

  • works with Confluence 2.3

Bug Fixes

  • fixed UsingTheme conditional, so comments tab is only visible if theme is being used.

Contributors

Show description 1.2 (#5) 27 Feb 2007 Stable Freeware / Open Source (BSD) Free

Release Notes

Stable Release

  • No changes since 1.2-RC1

Contributors

Show description 1.2.1 (#6) 01 Jun 2007 Stable Freeware / Open Source (BSD) Free

Release Notes

Bug Fixes

Contributors

Show description 1.3-RC2 (#7) 07 Nov 2008 Prerelease Freeware / Open Source (BSD) Free

Release Notes
Provides support for Confluence 2.8.0

Contributors

Show description 1.3-RC3 (#8) 10 Nov 2008 Prerelease Freeware / Open Source (BSD) Free

Release Notes
Provides support for Confluence 2.8.1

Contributors

Show description 1.3-RC4 (#9) 10 Nov 2008 Prerelease Freeware / Open Source (BSD) Free

Release Notes
Provides support for Confluence 2.9

Contributors

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Comments (25)

 

  1. Oct 06, 2006

    David Peterson [CustomWare] says:

    Nice work - I was thinking of doing something similar to this myself the other d...

    Nice work - I was thinking of doing something similar to this myself the other day - comment management is quite annoying at the moment...

    Question: Would it be possible to add some mass-deletion features? Currently the only way is to delete comments one-at-a-time, which is a serious pain on some of my pages. Options I've thought of are adding a check box and a "Delete all checked" option, or adding an extra link on each comment which has children saying "Remove this thread" or something along those lines. Either option would be excellent.

    Then, you just need to convince Atlassian to make this a standard option in Confluence...

    1. Oct 06, 2006

      David Peterson [CustomWare] says:

      Two other things jumped to mind: Question: When watching a page and getting a n...

      Two other things jumped to mind:

      Question: When watching a page and getting a notification email about a comment being added link to the correct location? I'm guessing not, since this is a totally different page. Or perhaps it will work correctly with the custom theme applied?

      Suggestion: It would be nice to give some indication on the tab that there are comments. Perhaps putting the number of comments in the tab ala the Attachments tab (eg. 'Comments (5)')? It would be even cooler if it could have something even more attention-grabbing if there were new comments since the user last viewed the page, but I don't know if Confluence even stores that info. I know that there is an API method for checking if a Page is 'new to user', but not sure if it applies to comments...

      1. Oct 08, 2006

        Laura Kolker says:

        re: mass-deletion. This would be a cool feature. I'll definitely keep it in mind...

        re: mass-deletion. This would be a cool feature. I'll definitely keep it in mind, if I add features to this theme.

        re: correct location on notification. Without having tested it, my guess would be that the link would send you to the View section of the same page. (Which is where most of the redirects would send when I hadn't explicitly monkeyed with them.) Good idea to check it.

        re: Comments(5). Awesome idea. I suspect this would be moderatly unpleasant to fix, but again, I'll keep it in mind, if it looks like I have time for a 2.0.

      2. Nov 07, 2006

        Laura Kolker says:

        Made some JIRA issues for these ideas. notifications question: http://developer....

        Made some JIRA issues for these ideas.
        notifications question:
        http://developer.atlassian.com/jira/browse/CCTT-2

        new comments indicator:
        http://developer.atlassian.com/jira/browse/CCTT-3

    2. Nov 07, 2006

      Laura Kolker says:

      Here's a JIRA item for that delete all/multiple feature: http://developer.atlass...

      Here's a JIRA item for that delete all/multiple feature:
      http://developer.atlassian.com/jira/browse/CCTT-1

  2. Oct 18, 2006

    Mike Cannon-Brookes says:

    On the tab - why couldn't we add a <condition> to it to check if the space...

    On the tab - why couldn't we add a <condition> to it to check if the space has the Comments Tab Theme enabled, thereby making it a space or global theme? Seems pretty simple to me.

    1. Oct 18, 2006

      Laura Kolker says:

      Good idea. Thanks.

      Good idea. Thanks.

    2. Nov 07, 2006

      Laura Kolker says:

      Here's a JIRA issue for the condition idea: http://developer.atlassian.com/jira/...

      Here's a JIRA issue for the condition idea:
      http://developer.atlassian.com/jira/browse/CCTT-4

  3. Oct 18, 2006

    Alex Holtz says:

    Any chance that as part of this plugin or as a feature for the base release of C...

    Any chance that as part of this plugin or as a feature for the base release of Confluence we might see the ability to expand/collapse specific levels within threaded comments?

    It would make managing discussions within comments easier.

    1. Oct 21, 2006

      Laura Kolker says:

      We'll definitely keep this in mind. Thanks for the suggestion.

      We'll definitely keep this in mind. Thanks for the suggestion.

    2. Nov 07, 2006

      Laura Kolker says:

      Here's a JIRA issue for the collapsing/expanging idea: http://developer.atlassia...

      Here's a JIRA issue for the collapsing/expanging idea:
      http://developer.atlassian.com/jira/browse/CCTT-5

  4. Aug 30, 2007

    Jim Dibble says:

    I found a couple of bugs in this theme. I can't find a bug category in JIRA, so...

    I found a couple of bugs in this theme. I can't find a bug category in JIRA, so I'm entering the bugs here...

    1. If you have your Confluence instance set up to support threaded comments, the Comments tab theme does not support adding a reply to a reply comment. I can add an initial comment, and then add a reply to the initial comment. But, if I try to reply to the reply, the UI bounces back to the "View" tab from the "Comments" tab.
    2. If you add a comment on the Comments tab, the new comment appears in the Recently Updated section of the Dashboard. However, if you click on the link, it brings you to the View tab rather than to the comment on the Comments tab.
    3. If you are watching a page and someone adds a new comment to the Comments tab, you receive an email notification. However, if you click on the link to the comment, it brings you to the View tab rather than to the comment on the Comments tab.
    4. If you have an RSS feed on a page and someone adds a new comment to the Comments tab, you receive an RSS notification. However, if you click on the link to the comment, it brings you to the View tab rather than to the comment on the Comments tab.

    1. Oct 20, 2006

      David Peterson [CustomWare] says:

      Items 2-4 will be difficult to fix, since the URL is generated by Confluence cod...

      Items 2-4 will be difficult to fix, since the URL is generated by Confluence code. The only way I can think of at the moment would be to hijack the ViewPageAction and have it redirect if the 'showComments' or 'focusedCommentId' parameter is set. Still pretty dodgy, and I'm not sure it would work in all situations anyway...

      1. Oct 21, 2006

        Laura Kolker says:

        Thanks Jim. I was aware of #2, but it's great to have feedback on the other prob...

        Thanks Jim.
        I was aware of #2, but it's great to have feedback on the other problems.

        re: difficult to fix. Well, I already had to hijack quite a few things in order to get anything to redirect to the Comments page instead of the View page. Pretty much any action needs to know where to go after you've started it, and for comments the default is the View page, but these little redirects are sprinkled all over. The question is if I can find spots in decorators that call those actions initially, then I can point to hijacked versions of the actions that will go where I want them. (That's what I'm doing with the initial reply-to, and the permalink, etc.). As for messing around with the ViewPageAction, my action that handles all the comment's foo is a descendent of ViewPageAction for just that reason. It just makes all that necessary hijacking so much simpler.

        re: JIRA, we're going to be getting a JIRA project set up for this theme soon, but in the meantime, yes please list feedback here. We'll add your bug alerts to JIRA once the project's up.

    2. Nov 07, 2006

      Laura Kolker says:

      We have a JIRA category now, so I've added your bug reports as issues: http://...

      We have a JIRA category now, so I've added your bug reports as issues:

  5. Feb 22, 2007

    James Mortimer says:

    Very nice enhancement. Much liked by users. The theme I installed via the repo...

    Very nice enhancement. Much liked by users.

    The theme I installed via the repository client seems to be all or nothing. I.e. I can't 'patch' it into my exsiting modified theme that has a 'discussion' tab and context-specific 'help' link on every page. Is there any plan or way to make this theme a UI plugin instead, which allows a space-by-space configuration of 'adding a comments tab to an existing theme'. Of course, a basic check would need to be done to make sure the theme was not modified to the point that it was incompatible with the comments tab, but otherwise this might be a nice standalone 'tab' to be added into many other 'themes'.

    Thanks again

    1. Feb 22, 2007

      Laura Kolker says:

      Hi James, I noticed you made a JIRA issue for this, so I'm going to respond the...

      Hi James,
      I noticed you made a JIRA issue for this, so I'm going to respond there.
      For other people reading this comment, the issue is located: http://developer.atlassian.com/jira/browse/CCTT-11

      Laura

  6. Feb 23, 2007

    Will Yan says:

    Suggestion. It would be great if the tab showed the # of comments made to the pa...

    Suggestion. It would be great if the tab showed the # of comments made to the page much like how Attachments displays the # of attachments in parentheses. There is no way to tell if there are comments unless you click the comments or using the RSS/notification.

    1. Feb 23, 2007

      Laura Kolker says:

      Hi Will, That's definitely a good point. And you're not the first person to sug...

      Hi Will,

      That's definitely a good point. And you're not the first person to suggest it.
      It's being tracked here: http://developer.atlassian.com/jira/browse/CCTT-3

      Please go and vote for it!

      Cheers,
      Laura

  7. May 04, 2007

    Devin Marco says:

    Hi Laura, I tried installing the plugin in confluence 2.4.4 but it doesn't work...

    Hi Laura, I tried installing the plugin in confluence 2.4.4 but it doesn't work, is it a known problem or did I done something wrong? I tried both the 1.2 and 1.2 RC1, on both I managed to install, I can see the Comments Tab, but when I opened it, it only shows '$pageXHtmlContent' Any advise? thanks a lot

    1. May 04, 2007

      Laura Kolker says:

      Hi Devin, Hrm. That's pretty odd. It works in 2.4.5. I'll take a look at 2.4.4 ...

      Hi Devin,

      Hrm. That's pretty odd. It works in 2.4.5. I'll take a look at 2.4.4 and get back to you.

      Thanks,
      Laura