Confluence 5.3-Beta1 Release Notes
5 September 2013
Highlights of Confluence 5.3-Beta1:
Downloading this Confluence release
The Confluence 5.3 Beta 1 release is available at the download centre. Before upgrading, please review the upgrade notes.
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 Confluence 5.3-Beta1
Rename users
Users with System Administrator permissions can now change a user's unique username. All users now have a unique, changeable username, and a unique, non-changing user key. The ability to change a username will depend on where your users are managed.
If you manage your users in Confluence's internal directory you can change usernames directly. Go to User Management, select a user and choose Edit Details. You can then update their username.
If you manage your users in Confluence's internal directory with LDAP authentication you will need to change the username in Confluence first, and then make the same change in LDAP.
At this stage Confluence does not support changing usernames when your users are managed in an external directory such as an LDAP server, Crowd or managed in JIRA.
Renamed users and page history
As part of the work required to allow administrators to rename users a migration task will create a new version of every page / blog in your site. Only the latest version of each page / blog will be migrated. This means that when a username is changed, any user mentions in page versions prior to the 5.3 migration will contain that user's old username. This is a limitation of our migration framework.
Personal Spaces
If a Confluence Administrator renames a user who has a personal space, the space key for that space will remain the user's original username. For example if jsmith's username is changed to jbrown, their personal space key will remain ~jsmith.
Information for plugin developers
Plugin developers should refer to the details previously provided in Preparing for Confluence 5.2 for information on the schema and API changes necessary to support the ability to change usernames.
Introducing Space Blueprints
In Confluence 5.1 blueprints solved the blank page problem. In 5.3 we are introducing Space Blueprints to solve the blank space problem. A space created with a space blueprint will feature a customized homepage, sidebar and contain page blueprints for creating content. The setup is done for you. In this Beta release you will be able to choose from a Blank Space, Team Space and Personal Space (if you do not already have a personal space).
Team Space blueprint
The Team Space blueprint ships with a customized homepage that highlights the members of the team, and makes blogs prominent on the homepage.
You will be prompted to enter the members of your team when creating a Team Space. Your team members will be granted permissions, included on the space homepage and added as watchers of the space automatically.
New Create Space dialog
You can now choose the type of space you would like to create in the Create Space dialog. We have big plans for the Create Space dialog, so watch out for more space blueprints coming soon.
For plugin developers: See Writing a Confluence Space Blueprint for more information on you can hook into the new create space dialog and allow users to easily create spaces of a certain type.
A new way to share links with your team
We've introduced a brand new blueprint - Shared Links. Choose Create > Share a link and share the great stuff you find on the web and discuss it with your team. To make sharing links even faster, you can add a Share on Confluence button to your browser's toolbar. Click this button and the webpage you are currently viewing will be added as a shared link!
Multiple navigation modes for the sidebar
You now can choose to show the full page tree for your space in the sidebar. Go to Space Tools > Configure Sidebar to switch between Child pages and Page tree modes.
Request access to a restricted page
Have you been sent a link to a Confluence page that is restricted? You can now request access to view the page. Confluence will send an email to a user who can grant you access - this will be one of either the last user to edit the page, the page creator or a space admin. Access can be granted with just a few clicks, and you'll receive an email to let you know when its all done.
You will need to have a mail server configured in Confluence to use this feature. Request access is not available on pages that have inherited restrictions from a parent page.
Improved whitelist UI
The existing whitelists for gadgets and macros in Confluence have been combined into a single, easier to use whitelist. Confluence Administrators can easily specify a domain, an exact url, or use wildcards and regular expressions when adding to the whitelist.
You can also test specific URLs to confirm whether content and connections are allowed.
The whitelist is used by gadgets, the RSS macro and the HTML Include macro. Application links are automatically added to the whitelist for you.
You can find the new whitelist under Confluence Admin > Whitelist.
Livesearch macro improvements
We have improved the Livesearch macro. You can now restrict the search to specific labels, content types such as pages, blogs or comments, and choose to display additional information such as the space name or a page excerpt under each result.
You also have more control over the size of the search field, and the ability to add place holder text to help guide your users towards the right search, for example 'Search all blogs'.
Notifications refresh
In Confluence 5.2 we refreshed the look of our email notifications. As part of this work we have now removed the Edit Space notification email.
End of support notices
End of support for MS SQL 2005
As previously announced, from this release onwards we no longer offer support for MS SQL 2005. See End of Support Announcements for Confluence for more information.
End of support for Social Bookmarking plugin
As previously announced, from this release onwards we no longer support the Social Bookmarking Plugin. This functionality will be replaced by the Shared Links blueprint.
Known Issues
The following is a known issue with this beta release:
CONF-30749 - Getting issue details... STATUS
Giving feedback
We'd love your feedback so please:
- Feel free to comment on this page with your feedback, or
- Send us your comments via the 'Got Feedback' option in the header of your EAP Confluence site.
Upgrade notes
Follow the usual upgrade instructions to upgrade your test site to this release.
Advanced Notice
These are points of interest for plugin and add-on developers.
- Plugin developers: please read developer guide to preparing for Confluence 5.3 for advanced developer notices.