Widget Connector Macro
Embed online videos, slideshows, photostreams and more directly into your page with the Widget Connector macro.
The macro currently supports content from these sites:
- YouTube
- Vimeo
- Google Calendar
- Google Docs
- Wufoo
It can also display content from these sites, once they have been added to the whitelist:
- Scribd
- Flickr (requires Flash)
- Slideshare (requires Flash)
- Viddler (requires Flash)
Using the Widget Connector
To add the Widget Connector to a page:
- From the editor toolbar, choose Insert
> Other Macros - Find and select the required macro
Speed it up with autocomplete: Type { and the beginning of the macro name, to see a list of suggested macros. In this example we're inserting the cheese macro.
To edit an existing macro: Click the macro placeholder and choose Edit. This will open the macro details, so you can edit the macro parameters.
On this page:
Parameters
Parameters are options that you can set to control the content or format of the macro output. Where the parameter name used in Confluence storage format or wikimarkup is different to the label used in the macro browser, it will be listed below in brackets (example).
Parameter | Description |
|---|---|
Web Site's Widget URL | This is the external site's URL. In some sites this will be the URL shown in the address bar of your browser, and in other sites you may need to click a Share or Link button to get the URL. |
Pixel Height (Value Only) | The height of the display, in pixels. |
Pixel Width (Value Only) | The width of the display, in pixels. |
Examples
Every site is a little different, so we've put together some info on what you'll need to do to embed each site's content on a page.
YouTube
The fastest way to embed a YouTube video is to paste the URL into the editor. Confluence will autoconvert the link and insert the macro for you, like magic. Autoconvert works with both long and short YouTube URLs.
If you're pasting the URL into the Widget Connector macro URL field manually, you'll need to use the long URL (from the address bar). Long URLs look something like this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6lK5hlB1nQ.
- If you're not able to see the video in some browsers, try using https rather than http in your link.
- Links that contain a parameter to start a video at a particular time won't autoconvert or work in the Widget Connector macro, like this link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=15&v=LhHKkodOPFo. Paste in the short sharing URL to be sure it works.
Vimeo
The fastest way to embed a Vimeo video is to paste the URL into the editor. Confluence will autoconvert the link and insert the macro for you.
You can use the URL from the address bar in your browser or the Share button in Vimeo.
Flickr
You can embed albums (formerly known as sets) and tags. You can't embed individual photos or user photostreams.
You'll need to add the Widget Connector macro to the page first and then paste your link into the URL field. Use the URL from the address bar in your browser.
The Widget Connector uses Flash to display this content. For security reasons, Flash is disabled in most modern browsers.
To embed a single tweet you'll need to click the Copy link to tweet link on the tweet. The URL will look something like https://twitter.com/atlassian/status/346976521250037760.
You can't currently embed a list of tweets, as Twitter has changed the way their widgets work.
A workaround for displaying a list of tweets is to enable the HTML Macro, and then use https://publish.twitter.com/ to generate the embed code.
Google Calendar
We don't autoconvert Google Calendars, so you'll need to add the Widget Connector macro to your page first, and then paste the calendar address into the URL field.
You can only embed public calendars. To get your calendar's URL, in Google Calendar go to Calendar Settings > Calendar Address and click the HTML button.
The URL will look something like this: https://www.google.com/calendar/embed?src=en.australian%23holiday%40group.v.calendar.google.com&ctz=Australia/Sydney
Troubleshooting
If the Widget Connector can't display content from the external site, the macro will look like this:
We rely on the external website's APIs to display content in the Widget Connector macro. APIs do change from time to time and this can cause the Widget Connector macro to stop rendering content.
If you experience problems, you can raise an issue about it to let us know.
Some sites must be whitelisted
The following sites need to be added to Confluence's whitelist before the macro can display any content. This is due to the way we need to connect to that site.
- Scribd
- Flickr
- Slideshare
- Viddler
Some content requires Flash
The Widget Connector requires Flash for Flickr, Slideshare, and Viddler. This is blocked by most modern browsers due to security concerns. We don't recommend you enable the Flash plugin in your browser.
Wiki markup example
This example is useful when you want to add a macro outside the editor, for example as custom content in the sidebar, header or footer of a space.
Macro name: widget
Macro body: None.
{widget:height=400|width=400|url=http://youtube.com/watch?v=23pLByj_q5U}