Shortcut links provide a quick way of linking to resources frequently referenced from Confluence. When you create a shortcut link, you are assigning a key to a URL so that when a user edits Confluence documents they can type the key instead of the complete URL.

Here is an example:

Most Google searches look like this: http://www.google.com/search?q=. If you create a shortcut for this search with the key 'google', every time a user needs to use http://www.google.com/search?q=searchterms, they can just type [searchterms@google] instead.

Here is a screenshot showing the shortcuts currently defined on http://confluence.atlassian.com:

Shortcut links are added and maintained by Confluence administrators from the Administration Console.

To create a shortcut link,

  1. Go to the 'Administration Console' and click 'Shortcut Links' in the left panel.
  2. Enter a 'Key' for your shortcut. This is the shortcut name a user will use to reference the URL.
  3. Enter the 'Expanded Value'. This is the URL for the link. You can use '%s' in the URL to specify where the user's input is inserted. If there is no '%s' in the URL, the user's input will be put at the end.
  4. (Optional. Available in Confluence version 2.3 and later.) Enter a 'Default Alias'. This is the text of the link which will be displayed on the page where the shortcut is used, with the user's text being substituted for '%s'.
  5. Click 'Save'.



Using Shortcut Links

Specify in the link what should go on the end of the shortcut URL, followed by an at-sign (@) and the key of the shortcut. Shortcut names are case-insensitive. So, for example, using the keys shown in the above screenshot:

To link to...

Type this

Resulting URL

Demonstration

a JIRA issue

[CONF-1000@JIRA]

http://jira.atlassian.com/secure/QuickSearch.jspa?searchString=CONF-1000

CONF-1000

a Google search

[Atlassian Confluence@Google]

http://www.google.com/search?q=Atlassian+Confluence

Atlassian Confluence@Google

Shortcut links can have titles just like any other link:

To link to...

Type this

Resulting URL

Demonstration

Internet Movie Database

[Fight Club|tt0137523@IMDB]

http://us.imdb.com/Title?tt0137523

Fight Club

Google Cache

[Cached Homepage|www.atlassian.com@cache]

http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:www.atlassian.com

Cached Homepage

Deleting Shortcut Links

Once you have created a shortcut link, it is listed under 'Shortcut Links' in the 'Administration Console'. Click 'Remove' to delete the shortcut.

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