Confluence 5.0-m3 EAP Release Notes
With great pleasure, Atlassian presents Confluence 5.0 milestone 3 (m3). This is the first public milestone release of Confluence 5.0.
This EAP (early access program) release is a snapshot of our work in progress, primarily focused on allowing Confluence users to see the new features in advance. Feel free to comment on the page if you want to provide any feedback or ask any questions. EAP releases also give plugin developers an opportunity to test and fix their plugins in advance of an official release.
What's in this release?
Downloading Confluence
The Confluence 5.0-m3 release is available at the download site. When upgrading, please follow the upgrade notes below.
Development releases are not production ready. Development releases are snapshots of the ongoing Confluence development process. While we try to keep these releases stable, they have not undergone the same degree of testing as a full release, and could contain features that are incomplete or may change or be removed before the next full release.
No upgrade path. Because development releases represent work in progress, we cannot provide a supported upgrade path between development releases, or from any development release to a final release. You may not be able to migrate any data you store in a Confluence development release to a future Confluence release.
Atlassian does not provide support for development releases.
Highlights of this release
New styles (Atlassian Design Guidelines)
Confluence 5.0 introduces a modernized look and feel that is consistent with other Atlassian applications and follows the new Atlassian Design Guidelines. The main focus of development for m3 has been on the Dashboard, View Page, Editor and Login screen.
For plugin developers: This milestone includes a major upgrade to AUI 5.0-m13 (the Atlassian User Interface). This will also update the version of jQuery that Confluence supports. Your plugin will look different if it uses AUI. If it does not yet use AUI, your plugin will look out of place in Confluence 5.0. We recommend that you follow the new Atlassian Design Guidelines.
To see specific changes in this and future milestone releases, please view the Atlassian UI Updates page on our developer documentation site.
You can enable and disable the new styles in this milestone release via the option in the user menu, as shown below:
New header
We have made a number of changes to the header, to improve cross-product consistency, usability, and visual design.
- Switching between applications - If you have Confluence linked to JIRA, another Confluence server or another Atlassian application via Application Links, you can quickly switch to those applications via the header. You can also add links to other non-Atlassian applications.
- Moved Browse menu - The browse menu has moved to the left next to the other navigation-related links. In future milestones, the browse menu will be removed. In addition, 'people' and 'spaces' will become top-level menu items, and space-related browse items will move into a new space sidebar. (See 'Plugin Developer Notices' below.)
- Consolidated Help menu - Help links, like admin help, end user help and the link to keyboard shortcuts, have been consolidated into one menu item.
- Consolidated Aministrator menu - Site administrators will be able to access plugin management, user management and general admin settings directly from the cog icon in the header.
- User menu - All your personal settings can be accessed from user menu. Instead of displaying your username, we now display your profile picture for compactness and to minimize confusion.
- Breadcrumbs - Breadcrumbs have moved out of the header and now reside directly below the header.
In-page notifications
In Confluence 4.3 we introduced workbox notifications so you can access your Confluence notifications from within the Confluence header. Now in 5.0 you can access notifications directly within the page you're viewing!
Let's say you are viewing a page, and someone adds a comment to that page, or updates the page. Now you'll know about it immediately.
New mobile render mode for macros
Have you written a Confluence macro as a plugin? In Confluence 4.3.2 and later, you can make your macros work in Confluence mobile. For many macros there is little effort involved. Confluence mobile will render a macro if it contains a device type specification of "mobile". For more complex macros, you may need to convert the CSS and JavaScript too. Details are in this document: Making your macro render in Confluence mobile.
Other improvements
(Added in 4.3.2) The Excerpt Include macro can now include content from another space. When you type the name of the page into the Excerpt Include macro dialog, Confluence will offer a list of matching pages, including those from other spaces.
(Added in 4.3.2) You can now put one Expand macro inside another, and Confluence will correctly show and hide the contents of all Expand macros, including the nested ones. Here is an example.
(Added in 4.3.3) Confluence mobile now supports the default browser on Android devices (Android 4.0.3 Ice Cream Sandwich) as well as iOS. See Supported Platforms for details.
(Added in 4.3.2) We have made a large number of macros compatible with Confluence mobile. This means that many more macros will now work as expected when you access a page on your iPhone or iPad. The following bundled macros work in Confluence mobile:
Are you using the Zen Foundation theme? All the Zen macros work in Confluence mobile now too.
In-app notifications from JIRA and other Confluence sites
Wishing you could have all your notifications in just one spot? Your Confluence workbox can now display notifications from JIRA and from other Confluence sites. To receive JIRA notifications, you need JIRA 5.2 or later. Follow the guide to Configuring Workbox Notifications, then see the power of workbox in action. More...
Plugin developer notices
- Global menu items (system.browse) will now move into the help menu. It is important for you to re-assess your global menu items, and if you believe they should be a top-level menu item, switch this to system.header/left
Important: Please only consider this for global menu items and use with caution. - Plugin developers should also read Preparing for Confluence 5.0 to understand what additional changes to expect in coming 5.0 milestone releases.
Giving feedback
We'd love your feedback so please:
- Feel free to comment on this page with your feedback, or
- Send us along your comments via the 'Got Feedback' form available in the header of your EAP Confluence site.
Upgrade notes
These notes assist you in upgrading your test site to this EAP release.
Follow the usual upgrade instructions to upgrade your test site to this release.