All Confluence UI text is contained in a single Java properties file. This file can be modified to change the default text or translate Confluence into other languages than English.

The UI text file is ConfluenceActionSupport.properties. From your Confluence install directory:

\confluence\WEB-INF\classes\com\atlassian\confluence\core\ConfluenceActionSupport.properties

The file contains parameters with name=value pairs, in the format:

parameter.name=Parameter value

Parameter names are any text before the '=' character and should never be modified. Any text after the '=' character is the parameter value, which can be modified freely and can also contain variables. An example involving variables is: 

popular.labels=The three most popular labels are {0}, {1} and {2}.

For more information on replacing values, check out Translating ConfluenceActionSupport Content. Note that plugins store their text internally, so you must modify plugin text individually.

Steps For Modification

  1. Stop Confluence
  2. Under your install direcory, open \confluence\WEB-INF\classes\com\atlassian\confluence\core\ConfluenceActionSupport.properties
  3. Search for the text you wish to modify, update the parameter value and save the file
  4. Start Confluence

Common Modifications

Task

Search For

Notes

Rename 'Dashboard'

Dashboard

The dashboard.name parameter has the name. To change 'Dashboard' to 'My Portal', change dashboard.name=Dashboard to dashboard.name=My Portal and update any other occurrences of the word 'Dashboard' in the instance

Modify login page text

login.

The login.instructions parameter has the "Enter your account details below to login to Confluence" text

Modify Keyboard Shortcuts

Confluence provides a set of keyboard shortcuts. You could customise the shortcuts by making modifications inside the ConfluenceActionSupport.properties file.