Confluence 5.3-Beta3 Release Notes

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25 September 2013

Atlassian presents Confluence 5.3 Beta 3. This release is a snapshot of our work in progress, primarily focused on allowing Confluence users to see the new features in advance. This also provides Atlassian with useful feedback. Beta releases also give add-on developers an opportunity to test and fix their add-ons in advance of an official release.

Highlights of Confluence 5.3-Beta3:

Downloading this Confluence release

 

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-Beta3

Rename users

As previously announced in Confluence 5.3-Beta 1,  all users now have a unique, changeable username, and a unique, non-changing user key.

In this beta release we have added:

  • Ability for users with Confluence Administrator permissions to change usernames where users are managed in Confluence's internal directory. Previously this was limited to System Administrators only.
  • Ability for a username to be changed in LDAP and automatically detected in Confluence where users are managed in Confluence's internal directory with LDAP authentication and 'Copy User on Login' is enabled (see See copying users on Login).
  • Ability for a username to be changed in Crowd 2.7 or JIRA 6.1 and automatically detected in Confluence where users are managed in Crowd or JIRA.
  • Ability for a username to be changed in an LDAP directory and automatically detected in Confluence where users are managed in an external LDAP directory. 

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 the Knowledge Base Space Blueprint

In Confluence 5.3-Beta 1 we introduced the concept of Space Blueprints, now we are pleased to introduce our second space blueprint - Knowledge Base. 

The Knowledge Base space blueprint ships with everything you need to create a great knowledge base for your product, organization or team. Quickly and easily create How-To and Troubleshooting articles using the included page blueprints, and make them easy to find by adding labels for common topics. 

The search field on the knowledge base homepage is customized to only search for pages in your knowledge base space. The handy instructional text encourages your users to search for a solution to their problem or query, or they can browse all articles by topic, right from the Knowledge Base homepage. 

We provide you with the tools to encourage consistency in your knowledge base by promoting the How-To and Troubleshooting article page blueprints in the Create dialog, and providing customizable instructional text to guide users when creating articles. 

Promoted Blueprints and Templates

We often get asked how to set a default template for a space, or how to discourage users from using a blank page when a template is available. To help with this we now allow space administrators to promote specific blueprints and templates so they feature prominently in the Create dialog for a space.

Users can select a promoted item or choose Show more to see all the available blueprints and templates in that space, including blank page and blog post. 

Go to Space Tools > Content Tools to promote blueprints and templates, or create a Knowledge Base space to see it in action! 

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.   

Advanced Notice

These are points of interest for plugin and add-on developers.

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.

Last modified on May 27, 2016

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