I love Confluence. If I could use Textile Markup to do any editing of documents at any time, I would. If Textile Markup was in Google Docs, I would love it (although, now that the keyboard shortcuts are more similar to Word, it’s a little easier).
Of course Confluence is more than about the editing, but in this post I’m going to be concentrating on the editing features of Confluence – especially Wiki Markup. I do not use anything other than Wiki Markup when editing in Confluence*. Even though the Rich Text Editor has improved in later releases, it is still much easier to do “* type the text” to create a bulleted list than to take your hands away from the keyboard and find the icon to apply the bullet style.
(* I do use Rich Text editor when working with large tables – that is my only concession).
I am currently writing a very large help system in Confluence for a web based App that I work with. There is so much to do, that I need to be quick and have systems in place to do things without repetition.
The one thing that is difficult about editing in Confluence as much as I do, is that it is slow – this is the nature of web based applications It is slow to get into edit mode, and even slower to save the page and display the finished content again. There is Word connectors and WebDav, but they can be a bit of a pain and I just want to quickly edit text in a simple text editor. I can guarantee it that every time you think that a Confluence page is finished – there is always one tiny edit that needs to be done, one comma missing or a spelling error – it is this continuous editing that takes so much time.
What I also want most of all is syntax highlighting in Wiki Markup mode – so I can concentrate on the text, and ignore the macro’s and links etc, or quickly find that h2. line with the bit of text I need to edit.
The Confluence Plugin “Confluence In Place Editor” (CIPE) is great as it allows you to edit just the section of the page that is within a heading, and the main advantage of it, is that a text popup window pops up instantly – no more waiting to launch into edit mode.
So I have come up with my workflow for editing Confluence pages – using a number of tools, and I think, even though it is a bit clunky it is faster and cool, because I now have syntax highlighting.
My Apps
- My app in the browser depending on which one I’m writing about (generally Firefox).
- Confluence in Firefox (with Text Area Cache plugin enabled – this is a godsend – just do not use any Web based editing eg Confluence, WordPress etc without it).
- Notepad ++ (yes, I’m a Windows user, you could do similar with TextMate for Mac).
- Snagit (yes, Snagit is now available for Mac also).
- Dropbox (definitely the best thing since sliced bread).
- The Confluence In Place Editor Plugin
Notepad++
I Created a User Defined Language for Confluence – based on this site and refining it myself. Text I have formatted in different colours are:
- ! for images
- * for bold and bullets
- # for numbered lists
- Numbers
- {text between braces} for macros
- h1. h2. h3. etc
- [Links to Pages] in blue
I’m sure there are more things I could colour, but that is a good start and makes the Wiki Markup much more readable.
Snagit
My Workflow
- Create the screen shots and work out what needs to be written about.
- Add any numbering or other enhancements to the screen shot in Snagit.
- Create the text in Notepad++, viewing the Snagit screenshot side by side with the text to get the text right.
- Add the Screen shot link into the document based on the name you have called it in Snagit and the name of your Image Library page.
- When the text looks right, paste it into Confluence and have a look at the layout and structure of the document. (Note, there will be no screen shots visible yet – this makes it a bit cleaner to focus on just the words).
- Display the Confluence page and the Notepad++ document side by side on the screen, so as you see things in the Confluence page that need fixing, you can quickly edit the Notepad++ document. (You can do this with two browser windows open side by side also and use the normal Confluence editor).
- Check the spelling in Confluence as it uses your built-in browser spell checker with the words underlinked (Notepad++ spelling checker is not that great).
- Paste the edited text back in to Confluence when you are done. Using the CIPE plugin helps with that as it makes it much quicker to load than going into edit mode.
- Once all the text is correct, drag and drop your image files to the Image Library page.
- Refresh and check the completed page in Confluence to make sure everything looks great.
So, that’s my workflow. What is yours? Do you have any great ideas that will help streamline my processes, or will my ideas help streamline your processes? Let me know in the comments.
Jodie Miners says
Here is a link to the file. It’s not that extensive, just a few of the main Confluence wiki markup entities are included. If you can improve on it, please share your modified file back here. Thanks
Brock Fansler says
Could you post your Confluence Wiki User Defined Language XML?
gerrydir says
Really enjoyed this post – thanks Jodie
Jodie Miners says
“I do confess to a quick Ctrl-A, Ctrl-C before saving a big update.” ha ha, yes, I do that too :). Yes, I do all that you mentioned… I do use the editor, but as I’m fine tuning the page, I like to see the colours, and it’s much quicker just to copy out of confluence, edit then paste back in… Please please do coloured syntax in v4 🙂
Sarah Maddox says
Hallo Jodie
Nice post. 🙂 Ha ha, so you don’t actually use the Confluence editor much, at least when creating a page from scratch! Do you throw away the Notepad++ files once the content is all in Confluence? And if you’re planning a big update of a page, do you copy it all from Confluence into Notepad and then back again?
I use the Confluence wiki markup editor just about exclusively too, when working in Confluence 3.5. I’m also lucky enough to be working on some dogfood servers that are running Confluence 4.0 with its brand new editor. It’s going to be really interesting to see what you think of the editor, when a public version is available for testing. The new editor is a combination of rich text with a lot of smarts for people who like keyboard editing rather than the mouse and menus. A hint: Wiki markup never dies. 😉
Great idea, to use Dropbox and the Text Area Cache plugin. I do confess to a quick Ctrl-A, Ctrl-C before saving a big update.
Cheers, Sarah
Jodie Miners says
Oh, and when talking about editing in Confluence quickly, this post is a must have reference guide – the ultimate guide to the action URL’s do do stuff in Confluence: http://www.divingintothedetails.com/confluence/urls-to-access-confluence-wiki-functionality/