How to add blog posts via button

[Max Silvernagel]

Hello community, I am wondering if there is a way to create a blog post via either a macro or clickable item. We used to have a method of doing this via a custom weblink, but this stopped working in a recent update (the same functionality was used for creating child pages as well, but built in macros got around that issue). When looking through all the macros, the only "blog" related one is to embed a *view* of all blog posts, but not one to create a blog post itself.

This was the old method we had, by placing this custom weblink into a clickable image:

http://collab/confluence/pages/createblogpost.action?spaceKey=[SPACEKEY]&labelsString=blog

Currently, the only way to make a blog post now is to click the 3 dots at the "create" button on the Confluence top bar, and then selecting the "blog post" template.

Any ideas? Surely there is a better way to create new post. Thanks!

[Cyrille Martin]

Hi @Max Silvernagel 

I think it could be good to inform your users about the shortcuts available in Confluence.

To create a Blogpost in Confluence, just press "b" on your keyboard ;) 

Regards,

[Marshall Walker Lee]

Here are a few approaches to achieve a "create blog post" functionality in Confluence, optimizing for the best outcome for the person transacting (i.e., making it easy for users to create blogs):

1. Direct Link to Create Blog Post (Most Straightforward)

This is often the most reliable and simplest method, similar to your old custom weblink. Confluence has a specific URL structure for creating new content.

• How it works: You create a web link that directly points to the "create blog post" action for a specific space.
• Steps:
  1. Find your Space Key: Go to any page within the Confluence space where you want the blog post to be created. Look at the URL in your browser. You'll typically see something like https://yourconfluencesite.com/wiki/spaces/SPACEKEY/. The SPACEKEY is what you need.
  2. Construct the URL: The URL to create a blog post is generally:https://yourconfluencesite.com/wiki/pages/createblogpost.action?spaceKey=YOURSPACEKEYReplace yourconfluencesite.com with your actual Confluence instance URL and YOURSPACEKEY with the key you found in step 1.
  3. Create a Clickable Item in Confluence:
     • On a Confluence Page:
       • Edit the page where you want the "Create Blog Post" link.
       • Type /link or click the "Link" icon in the editor toolbar.
       • Paste the constructed URL into the "Address" field.
       • Enter "Create New Blog Post" (or similar) in the "Link text" field.
       • Save the link.
     • As a Button (if you have the HTML macro or a user macro): If your Confluence instance allows the HTML macro or custom user macros, you could embed an HTML button with this URL. For example:
       HTML

       <a href="/pages/createblogpost.action?spaceKey=YOURSPACEKEY" class="aui-button"><span>Create Blog Post</span></a>
       

       (Note: The aui-button class gives it the standard Atlassian button styling. This requires the HTML macro or a user macro with HTML capabilities.)

Why this is often the best outcome:

• Direct and quick: Users click and are immediately taken to the new blog post creation screen.
• No extra macros needed: Leverages Confluence's built-in functionality.
• Works consistently: Less prone to breaking with Confluence updates compared to more complex workarounds.

2. Utilizing the "Blog Posts" Macro (with a trick)

While the "Blog Posts" macro isn't designed to create a blog, there's a community-suggested workaround:

• How it works: If you use the "Blog Posts" macro with a query that returns no blog posts (e.g., filtering by a non-existent label), Confluence will often display a "Create blog post" button within the macro's output.
• Steps:
  1. Insert the "Blog Posts" macro onto your page.
  2. In the macro settings, specify a label that you know for sure is not used on any blog posts in that space (e.g., _no_blogs_here_).
  3. Save the macro and the page.
  4. If it works, you should see a message within the macro display indicating no blog posts match, along with a "Create blog post" button.

Considerations:

• This is a workaround and might not always be aesthetically pleasing or consistently available across all Confluence versions/configurations.
• It relies on Confluence's default behavior when no results are found.

[Max Silvernagel]

Hey Marshall! Thank you for the detailed reply.

Edit: it appears this is a known issue: https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/CONFSERVER-95894

I think the best option would be to use the display trick with the view blogs macro as I like using built-in options as much as possible, but I am hitting an issue with it - the same one that we had hit when trying to use the web link method in other areas of Confluence for making meeting pages, and had simply lived with a workaround. It looks like the view blogs macro uses the same functionality, and gives the same error, being "Your request could not be processed because a required security token was not present in the request. You may need to re-submit the form or reload the page".

I am not entirely sure what is causing this - have you seen it before? I am wondering if it is because our instance of Confluence is still using HTTP instead of HTTPS. After our most recent upgrade, a number of things stopped working, and I am wondering if the software has become less forgiving of HTTP security. Were that not the case, this solution would have been perfect! :D