Multi-Excerpt Plugin

Name Multi Excerpt Plugin
Vendor Artemis Software (Website)
Authors Brendan Patterson
Homepage http://confluence.atlassian.com/display/CONFEXT/Multi-Excerpt+Plugin
Issue Management http://developer.atlassian.com/jira/browse/CMEP
Categories Macros Content Macros Documentation Macros
Version 2.0
Availability Confluence v2.0 to v2.10-m1
State Stable
Support Unsupported Plugins
License Commercial
Price Buy
Release Docs http://confluence.atlassian.com/display/CONFEXT/Multi-Excerpt+Plugin
Java API Docs n/a
Download Source n/a
Download JAR multiexcerpt-plugin-2.0.jar

July 27th, 2008
Version 2.0 released! All the current known issues have been resolved. Additionally you can now include excerpts from other spaces. See the details below.

The trial works for up to ten excerpt includes. There is no time limit on the trial. You can purchase the plugin anytime to remove the limitation.

Description/Features

The multi excerpt plugin behaves like the excerpt macro, but allows for multiple excerpts, from multiple spaces.

Usage

{multi-excerpt} parameters:

  • name - required the excerpt section must be identified

{multi-excerpt-include} parameters:

  • pageTitle - required title of the page from which the macro is being retrieved
    • spacekey:pageTitle - the above option can also take the form of spacekey:pageTitle if including content from a different space.
  • name - required must match the excerpt being retrieved
  • nopanel - optional this excerpt is displayed inside a panel unless nopanel=false.

Examples

On the page with text you wish to have included elsewhere:
A page with title: Sample Page
{multi-excerpt:name=some sample 1}
some text excerpt 1
{multi-excerpt}

{multi-excerpt:name=some sample 2}
some text excerpt 2
{multi-excerpt}
On the page where you are including the text
{multi-excerpt-include:pageTitle=Sample Page|name=some sample 1|nopanel=true}
{multi-excerpt-include:pageTitle=Sample Page|name=some sample 2|nopanel=true}
{multi-excerpt-include:spaceKey:pageName|name=excerptName|nopanel=true}\\
Output on the page with excerpts being displayed
some text excerpt 1

some text excerpt 2

some text from a different space sample page

Version History

New Requested features and fixes for version 2.0

Atlassian Developer Network JIRA (6 issues)
T Key Summary Assignee Reporter Pr Status Res Created Updated Due
Bug CMEP-7 a blank line gets inserted above and below the multi-excerpt Brendan Patterson Brendan Patterson Major Resolved FIXED Aug 01, 2008 Aug 01, 2008
Improvement CMEP-5 other macros such as the {children} macro can be embedded Brendan Patterson Brendan Patterson Major Resolved FIXED Jul 26, 2008 Jul 26, 2008
Improvement CMEP-4 the multi-excerpt-include macro ignores permission restrictions Brendan Patterson Brendan Patterson Major Resolved FIXED Jul 26, 2008 Jul 26, 2008
Bug CMEP-3 images not rendered inside multi-excerpt macro Brendan Patterson Brendan Patterson Major Resolved FIXED Jul 26, 2008 Jul 26, 2008
New Feature CMEP-2 add ability to include excerpts between spaces Brendan Patterson Brendan Patterson Major Resolved FIXED Jul 26, 2008 Jul 26, 2008
Bug CMEP-1 text inside multi-excerpt only not being rendered only displayed Brendan Patterson Brendan Patterson Major Resolved FIXED Jul 26, 2008 Jul 26, 2008

Open Issues

Please add new issues to the multi-excerpt JIRA project

Please vote for an existing issues which appeal to you.

FAQ

How does the trial work?

Version 2.0+ of the plugin allows up to 10 multi-excerpt-includes to work. The same excerpts can be included multiple places and only count once. Once you have more then 10 the addition multi-excerpt-includes will display a message with a link to where you can purchase a license.

How much does the plugin now cost?

The plugin currently costs $50.

Why is this now commercial when it was free?

The plugin was initially released as open source. After approx. 1000 downloads the newer versions of Confluence required updates to the plugin. Additionally people requested clever enhancements. I fixed the plugin a couple of times, but Confluence updates continued to break it.

After trying to figure out how to best help the many companies who use this plugin I decided to rerelease it completely fixed, updated and with several feature requests implemented.

To do this I have to charge a small fee. Purchasers of this plugin will be offered support to their issues and continue to see enhancements to this plugin.

Will this continue to work as new versions of Confluence as they're released?

Yes!

What versions of Confluence will this work with?

Currently tested against 2.7 and 2.8 however if I receive requests for other versions of Confluence I'll endeavor to support those as well.

My question is not answered

Please add it as a JIRA issue and I'll add the answer here

I'd like to see a new feature

Please add it to the JIRA support project and I'll do my best to evaluate it and respond or implement it if possible ASAP. I'd love more ideas.

How are payments processed

Payments are processed using Paypal and Google Checkout via the award-winning payment processor e-junkie.

Our project is open source or non for profit, do you honor Atlassian's same approach towards these types of projects?

Yes. If you have a Confluence license of those types just email me the site from a similar email address (same domain) and I'll send you a license. soon the plugin will determine the Confluence license type automatically and this will not be necessary.

What happened to the original open source code?

It's still available here.

Download history of the multi-excerpt plugin for the last year


Date 2007-Sep 2007-Oct 2007-Nov 2007-Dec 2008-Jan 2008-Feb 2008-Mar 2008-Apr 2008-May 2008-Jun 2008-Jul 2008-Aug 2008-Sep
Hits 29 51 46 54 71 65 61 69 54 71 56 56 1

Total:

Date 2007-09-07 - 2008-09-07
Hits 684

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  1. Dec 08, 2006

    Alan Vander Hoeven says:

    I like this plug in and have used it quite a bit.  I would however really l...

    I like this plug in and have used it quite a bit.  I would however really like to do a multi-excerpt-include with a page from a different space.  The pageTitle parm does not recognize the space:page convention.

    1. May 19

      Nicholas Kerzman says:

      Any chance that multexcerpt works across spaces? Or does it have the same limita...

      Any chance that mult-excerpt works across spaces? Or does it have the same limitation identified with excerpt (CONF-5752)?

      Cross-space excerpting would be great. 

    2. Jul 28

      Brendan Patterson says:

      This now works for v2.0. Please see the usage documentation for details.

      This now works for v2.0. Please see the usage documentation for details.

  2. Jul 05, 2007

    Richard Tilghman says:

    This plugin is a GREAT idea.  However, what I really need is for it to be i...

    This plug-in is a GREAT idea.  However, what I really need is for it to be integrated with other macros like the Children macro... that way I can actually have multiple excerpts for dynamically defined locations (say a list of all children below a parent) displayed without having to manually create the lists with multiple excerpts specified.

    Any chance this new version of excerpt will be incorporated into other macros?

    Rick

    1. Jul 05, 2007

      David Peterson says:

      I would suggest a combination of the setdata

      I would suggest a combination of the set-data macro from the Scaffolding Plugin and the Reporting Plugin (check out the 'Custom Children' recipe).

    2. Jul 28

      Brendan Patterson says:

      This should now work with version 2.0.

      This should now work with version 2.0.

  3. Sep 18, 2007

    Firat Vakiliev says:

    This pludin is suited for me, however it is`t support the source page security r...

    This pludin is suited for me, however it is`t support the source page security restrictions. Why?

    1. Jul 28

      Brendan Patterson says:

      Page security restrictions have been added for v2.0!

      Page security restrictions have been added for v2.0!

  4. Dec 14, 2007

    Redcosmos King says:

    I would like to be able to group together contents from multiple "multiexcerpt" ...

    I would like to be able to group together contents from multiple "multi-excerpt" sections with the same name within the page. For example, a content page with markup:

    {multi-excerpt:name=topic1}
    some content for topic1
    {multi-excerpt}
    .....
    {multi-excerpt:name=topic2}
    some content for topic2
    {multi-excerpt}
    .....
    {multi-excerpt:name=topic1}
    some more content for topic1
    {multi-excerpt}
    .....
    {multi-excerpt:name=topic2}
    some more content for topic2
    {multi-excerpt}
    .....

    Then a summary page with markup:

    Topic 1:
    {multi-excerpt-include:Content page|name=topic1}
    Topic 2:
    {multi-excerpt-include:Content page|name=topic2}

    should show:

    Topic 1:
    some content for topic1
    some more content for topic1
    Topic 2
    some content for topic2
    some more content for topic2

    The current behavior seems to only show the last excerpt for each "multi-excerpt:name":

    Topic 1:
    some more content for topic1
    Topic 2
    some more content for topic2
    1. Jul 28

      Brendan Patterson says:

      thanks for the great idea. I've added the suggestion here:

      thanks for the great idea. I've added the suggestion here:
      http://developer.atlassian.com/jira/browse/CMEP-6

      please vote for it.

  5. Mar 12

    Rick Hadsall says:

    I love this plugin, with one major exception it kills all formatting within the ...

    I love this plugin, with one major exception - it kills all formatting within the excerpt. So while it renders great on the page that includes the content, on the master page, it looks terrible. Headings (h1 h2 h3 h4 etc), macros, table formatting all get killed...

    Is there a way you could make an option to turn that on and off?

    1. Mar 13

      Brendan Patterson says:

      Rick, Could you please try this version multiexcerptplugin2.7.1.jar and let me ...

      Rick,

      Could you please try this version and let me know if it works better.

      Atlassian seems to have changed the way the page render modes work in the last few versions. In fact I had no idea so many people were using it till it broke

      • go to Admin -> Plugin Manager
      • uninstall your current multi-excerpt macro
      • save the attached file in this email
      • then upload it using the 'Plugin Mangers' upload button (so you're going around the repository in this case)
    2. Jul 28

      Brendan Patterson says:

      this is fixed with v2.0 and will continue to work moving forward.

      this is fixed with v2.0 and will continue to work moving forward.

  6. Mar 13

    Man Che says:

    I was trying to install this plugin, but get some error when loading, any help h...

    I was trying to install this plugin, but get some error when loading, any help here?

     I am on Confluence 2.6.0 and J2SE v1.4.2_13 SDK

    Thanks in advance.

    Man Che

    Multi Excerpt

    Vendor: Brendan Patterson
    Plugin Version: 1.1

    Multi Excerpt Plugin

    Uninstall plugin | multi-excerpt
    Identify multiple excerpts within a page
    Error: There was a problem loading the descriptor for module 'macro' in plugin 'Multi Excerpt'. Class version is incompatible with current JVM: biz.artemissoftware.confluence.multiexcerpt.MultiExcerptMacro |


    1. Mar 13

      Brendan Patterson says:

      Yes the issue here is that you're running with Java 1.4.2 and this multiexcerptm...

      Yes the issue here is that you're running with Java 1.4.2 and this multi-excerpt-macro plugin was compiled with JDK 1.5

      Your options are to:
      1) move to running your Confluence instance with Java 5 (also known as 1.5)
      2) grab the source code and recompile it with JDK 1.4
      3) contact me to recompile it for you.....I'd do it for free but I'm about 3x overbooked. But ping me via email if you need help.

  7. May 21

    Man Che says:

    We use Java 6 now, and looks like the error goes away.\\ Thanks.

    We use Java 6 now, and looks like the error goes away.

    Thanks.

  8. Jun 05

    Aditee says:

    Hi, We have just upgraded to confluence 2.7.3 and have Multi Excerpt plugin ver...

    Hi,

    We have just upgraded to confluence 2.7.3 and have Multi Excerpt plugin version 1.1 installed.

    When we are using a table inside the multi-excerpt macro it is not displaying the table and just reading it as simple text.

    {multi-excerpt:name=some sample 1}
    || Status || Task || Target Date || Comments ||
    | 1 | XYVVVVV | ABC | type any comments here...|
    {multi-excerpt}

    Could you please let us know what can we do to recitify this.

    Also the multi-excerpt-include plugin in this case is working as expected and is able to display the table on the page it is called.

    JFYI previously when we had confluence 2.5.8 and Multi Excerpt 1.0 it worked fine.

    Thanks and Regards
    Aditee

    1. Jun 15

      Simon Wheatley says:

      Hi Aditee, The new version linked in Brendan's answer on Mar 13 solved this for...

      Hi Aditee,

      The new version linked in Brendan's answer on Mar 13 solved this for us. It seems the version in the Plugin Repository is out of date.

  9. Jun 15

    Simon Wheatley says:

    I'm not sure where the issues log for this project is, so I'm posting this here....

    I'm not sure where the issues log for this project is, so I'm posting this here. Hope that's OK.

    Currently the multi-excerpt macro doesn't render images which are attached to the original page. Would be really cool if it did!

    1. Jun 16

      Brendan Patterson says:

      thanks for the problem report. I've noted it. For the moment this is probably th...

      thanks for the problem report. I've noted it. For the moment this is probably the best place to report issues.

      keep in mind that the source code is available so if you have any people available who know a bit about Java you can probably tweak this into shape.

      Thanks for the interest!

      1. Jun 16

        Simon Wheatley says:

        Thanks Brendan, no expectation of anything. :) (Sadly my Javafu is limited to b...

        Thanks Brendan, no expectation of anything.

        (Sadly my Java-fu is limited to being able to spell it, my skills are mainly in JS, CSS and HTML.)

        1. Jul 28

          Brendan Patterson says:

          fixed in version v2.0

          fixed in version v2.0

          1. Aug 11

            Simon Wheatley says:

            The macro still doesn't seem to render images which are attached to the original...

            The macro still doesn't seem to render images which are attached to the original page. If you attach the images to the "slave" page, then they are rendered. Have I missed something? Scratch that. I've misread the plugin repo page in admin, and thought someone else had installed v2. I'm still on v1.2 which is probably why it's not working.

            /me Goes to get credit card.

            1. Aug 12

              Brendan Patterson says:

              Simon, I saw your first post yesterday and have just now had the time to look a...

              Simon,

              I saw your first post yesterday and have just now had the time to look at your issue.

              I believe your revised statement is correct I've just done another test and the image rendering does seem to be working in every direction that I can tell.

              thanks for the purchase!!!!! I REALLY appreciate it!!!!!!
              Brendan

              1. Aug 13

                Simon Wheatley says:

                Yep, it's all working now. Thank you.

                Yep, it's all working now. Thank you.

  10. Jun 24

    Mike Burr says:

    Hi, is there a way to link excerpts between spaces? Thanks.

    Hi, is there a way to link excerpts between spaces? Thanks.

    1. Jul 28

      Brendan Patterson says:

      Yes. I've added this feature for v2.0. You can find the new syntax in the docume...

      Yes. I've added this feature for v2.0. You can find the new syntax in the documentation of this page. Thanks for the great suggestion!

  11. Jul 19

    Vijay Iyer says:

    I observe the same behavior reported by Rick Hadsall on March 12, and will be tr...

    I observe the same behavior reported by Rick Hadsall on March 12, and will be trying 2.7.1 on Monday when my wiki adminstrator is in. Since it seems by the comments of some (Simon Wheatley) to do the trick, it would be great if it were made the current version...it's going to be a hard sell to my administrator to install this new version based on the comments here!

    1. Jul 19

      Brendan Patterson says:

      Hi, I've actually fixed that problem with formatting and added a few new featur...

      Hi,

      I've actually fixed that problem with formatting and added a few new features including permission checking AND the ability to include excerpts from other spaces.

      I've been working hard and will be releasing these updates in the next couple of days (they're not available just yet). So please put a 'watch' on this page (meaning you'll be emailed updates) and stay tuned.

      I'll be adding other new features people have suggested as well ASAP.

      thanks,
      Brendan