Expand Text User Macro

Is it possible it use the expand macro on things other than plain text, such as whole pages or sub-pages?

For instance, if I use the reporting or sub-page macros to display the full contents of my children pages, can I then allow users to show/hide them using expand?

How would I code this? 

The Visibility Plugin (specifically deck and card macros) already do this sort of thing...

To make this a bit more efficient, I dropped the javascript into the "At the end of the HEAD" section in "Custom HTML" in the Admin pages.

It's a small amount of Javascript to cache and for page that use this a lot it's a good difference.

This macro borks if the {attachments} macro is used on the same page (it seems the expand macro uses the same JS as the attachments macro and they conflict).

Anyone mind if we (at some point) add an Java version of the expand macro to our open source Content Formatting Macros plugin?

James,

You forgot to include ${bootstrap.webAppContextPath} in the image sources.

Having an issue with bullets inside the expanded text. If the title is formatted, the bullets seem to pick up the formatting., eg:

bullets herein shouldn't be bolded

regular text

• bullet
• bullet

Two things you could add

1) don't display anything if the body is empty

#if($body && $body.length()>0)
[current code of the macro]
#end

I think the last line of the macro should use $!body instead of $body, as $!body will print as nothing if empty, whereas $body will print as $body if empty:

<div id="answer-$toggleId" class="toggle-answer" style="display: none">$!body</div>

2) only display the body when in printable version

#if ($action.isPrintableVersion())
$!body
#else
[current code of the macro]
#end

If the same macro is used multiple times on the same page, it's worth doing a no-body {expand-include} macro that will include the javascript only once , to be called on top of the page. And remove the javascript inclusion from the current {expand} macro.

I'm wondering if there has been a fix or enhancement to this macro to be able to operate the expand link (and therefore to see the expandable text) within the preview?

I see that in the "Feature Requests" section of this page, there is a comment of "detect if we are in preview or template modes. If so, we need to do a different renderer (currently, throws error in preview mode if the page does not yet exist, probably because of the getRealTitle)". However, my problem isn't that I get an error because the page isn't existant yet, but rather, on a page that already exists, that I can't actually operate the expand to preview the content underneath. Because I use expand so much within my content, this forces me to save multiple versions of my page just to troubleshoot any formatting issues "inside" the expand macros.

If anyone knows how the macro "code" can be changed so that expandable text can be rendered in the preview, pleaes comment! I would greatly appreciate it.

Hi James,

I'm wondering if there's a way to get this macro working with multiple levels? ie. standard expand line, clicking will bring up two more expandable lines with standard text for each. Does this make sense?

Cheers,
Michael

Hi,
Is there are any security issues I should consider before using this macro ?
Thanks,
Ido

Regarding this line:

#set( $toggleId = $action.random )

The getRandom method of ConfluenceActionSupport is deprecated in 2.9, and scheduled to be removed in a future version. (Actually for a time in the 2.9 development cycle it had been removed, and we noticed that it broke this macro!)

I'd recommend using an incrementing request attribute for the ID.

Using {expand} in Preview Mode in Confluence 2.9

Bad news. For anyone who is using my workaround to get {expand} working in Preview mode, I have discovered that it doesn't work once you upgrade to Confluence 2.9.

The functions are still being inserted at the end of the HEAD tag, but when you click on the "Click to expand ..." section, nothing happens – as if no workaround had been implemented. Firebug tells me that the "ExpandMacroToggleAction function is not defined". Something has changed between Confluence 2.8/2.8.2 and Confluence 2.9 that renders this workaround useless.

I have logged a support request for this problem and to ask for a workaround in relation to my earlier reply to Tim's fix, too. Will update you all when I get an answer.

James Mortimer: I think it is probably time for me to update this page to include my workaround (instead of just within the comments) despite the fact that it doesn't currently work in Confluence 2.9. As mentioned earlier, I was waiting to get a resolution to it not working with Tim's workaround before I updated this page. However, I now think that it may be necessary to update this page with the workaround so that the workaround doesn't get "missed" when Atlassian is looking at ensuring compatibility for any changes they make in the future. What do you think? Perhaps I can put a section in as you had requested earlier and just note that it currently doesn't work in Confluence 2.9.

Hi, all,

Thanks to Julie for investigating how to get this working in preview mode, and to James for adding the version compatibility matrix!

It's clear that there is a lot of interest in this macro. Even within Atlassian, it's used frequently and many people have come to depend on it. I'm going to look into what it would take to get this "promoted" from a user macro into an existing full-fledged plugin.

Hi folks,

It looks like links that are inside an expand macro don't create Incoming Links for the included page.  For example, I have a page "FS Create a Course" with

2.1.1 Select or Begin New Course Proposal

2.1.1 Select or Begin New Course Proposal

Hi,

If this was already addressed earlier, please forgive me but I did not see anything related listed above, or I did not understand it.  We have a user who has placed some expandtab items into a customized left navigation theme now used in her space's left navigation bar.  This works and displays fine when using any of the page operations (view, edit, attachments, info) but when adding a page or in any of the browse space areas the following error is shown where the triangle links to click and expand the section would normally be:

Error formatting macro: expand: com.atlassian.core.exception.InfrastructureException: Error occurred rendering template content
Error formatting macro: contentbylabel: java.lang.NullPointerException 

Is this something that can be addressed in the Macro or do you believe it is a user theme configuration problem or other confluence issue?

We are using Confluence 2.8.1

Thank you

Hi everyone! I'm back! I was so silent for most of the year because my contract with the company I was working with ended last summer (2008) and I didn't use Confluence for the entire year (or get any of your updates, which went to my company mail account). I'm now back and working on Confluence again with the same company.

I've just done an upgrade to Confluence 3.0 on a test server, and using the Current (I guess that would be 1.5) version of the Expand Text User Macro source which is compatible with Confluence 3.0.

I am noticing that the rendering of my pages with expand macros in them now have newlines/CRs/horizontal spaces between the Expand blocks whereas they didn't in 2.9.

That is, if my markup is:

{expand:#1 Expand Title}#1 Text{expand}
{expand:#2 Expand Title}#2 Text{expand}

In 2.9, it used to render like this:

> #1 Expand Title
> #2 Expand Title

Now that I've upgraded to 3.0, the same block of Wiki markup renders like this now:

> #1 Expand Title

> #2 Expand Title

There is a newline/CR/horizontal space between the 2 expand headings.

If I enter this instead:

{expand:#1 Expand Title}#1 Text{expand}{expand:#2 Expand Title}#2 Text{expand}

... then of course the rendering shows up without a newline between the Expand blocks. However, I don't want to change hundreds of pages to look like this, not to mention that it'd be nearly impossible to read/maintain in Wiki markup if all the {expand} blocks were stuck together.

Does anyone know how I can adjust my Expand macro itself (or something else in 3.0) to remove the extra newline/CR/horizontal space?

Thanks!
Julie

Thanks for the information, David. I have corresponded with Tim Moore from Atlassian who has confirmed your comment and also that "It also appears that there's no way to specify whether a user macro is block or inline. I've raised both issues with the Confluence team". The Confluence team has been provided the link to my comment above, so perhaps they'll be able to incorporate or suggest a fix/workaround. (Please! )

In the meantime, I thought I would provide a comment about an additional customization I had made a long time ago to my function ExpandMacroToggleAnswer(id javascript function which enabled me to change the appearance of the title of an expanded section so that it gave the users a visual cue as to what was expanded on a page and what was still "closed". In short, the titles of expanded sections would appear bold and italicized (as well as different color). I found this useful for navigation on many of the pages I was authoring, which had 10's of expand blocks on the page, some of them nested. This breaks in Confluence 3.0 and I do not quite understand why.

The code is below, for anyone who might find this functionality useful for 2.9 and earlier (I have not tested on 2.10.x):

<script type="text/javascript">
function ExpandMacroToggleAnswer(id) {
    var question = document.getElementById("question-" + id);  // note that this must correspond with <div id="question-$toggleId" style="cursor: pointer;" ... etc.
                                                               // in the question section of the HTML in the macro which lies outside of this function
    var answer = document.getElementById("answer-" + id);
    var icon = document.getElementById("icon-" + id);
    ExpandMacroToggle(answer);
    if (answer.style.display == 'none') {
        icon.src="${bootstrap.webAppContextPath}/images/icons/tree_plus.gif";

	// Adjust the question text to visually show that it is no longer expanded.
	question.style.fontWeight = "normal";
	question.style.fontVariant = "normal";
	question.style.fontStyle = "normal";
	question.style.color = "black";
    }
    else {
        icon.src="${bootstrap.webAppContextPath}/images/icons/tree_minus.gif";

	// Adjust the question text to visually show that it is expanded.
	question.style.fontWeight = "bold";
	question.style.fontVariant = "small-caps";
	question.style.fontStyle = "italic";
	question.style.color = "#990033";
    }
}
function ExpandMacroToggle(el) {
	if ( el.style.display != 'none' ) {
		el.style.display = 'none';
	}
	else {
		el.style.display = '';
	}
}
// preload open image (variable not used elsewhere)
openIcon = new Image();
openIcon.src = "${bootstrap.webAppContextPath}/images/icons/tree_minus.gif";
</script>

Note that I have also changed the little icon on the left from a > icon to a +/- icon just by using the "tree_plus.gif" instead of "arrow_closed_active_16.gif" and "tree_minus.gif" and "arrow_open_active_16.gif". You can find find more icons to use in your Confluence installation directory (<confluence-installation-directory>\confluence\images\icons) if you wish to customize the icons even further. This bit of functionality still works in Confluence 3.0.

But, once I upgraded to 3.0, the ability to adjust the fontWeight, fontVariant, fontStyle and color of the "question" element has been lost.

If anyone knows how to fix this so that I can get back the ability to visually show that a block of text is expanded, please let me know! Thanks!