With the release of Confluence 2.6.0, many files have been moved inside WEB-INF/lib/confluence-x.x.x.jar file, which means they can no longer be edited by simply opening and saving a file.

For example, you may find that some files previously were in <confluence install directory>/confluence/WEB-INF/classes are no longer there.
If you want to edit them for customisation, you will need to extract the relevant files from the confluence-x.x.x.jar, and place them in the directory where they are used to reside.

You can either use a zip application or use the jar tool from your JDK installation to extract the file.

Example

You want to modify xwork.xml in Confluence 2.10.2. The steps to follow are:

  1. Shutdown Confluence
  2. Locate WEB-INF/lib/confluence-2.10.2.jar.
  3. Open the jar file using your favourite zip application and search for WEB-INF/lib/confluence-2.10.2.jar/xwork.xml. You can also use JAVA's jar tool if you like.
  4. Extract xwork.xml and place it in WEB-INF/classes/, and modify as necessary. Any files placed in this folder will take precedence over their jarred version and you do not need to re-jar them in confluence-21.0.2.jar.
  5. Restart Confluence

(warning) The problem with customization is that they might break in the new version of Confluence. Some codes in your customized file might have changed in the new version. Hence, it is best that you do not copy your customized file directly to the new installation directory. Instead, you need to apply the same customization in the new version of the file.

RELEVANT TOPICS

Editing Files within JAR Archives
Installing Patched Class Files

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