Office files are not linked to the correct macro with drag and drop in CONF 5.7

[Robin Peters]

Hello,

We want to update Confluence 5.4 to 5.7 and we have a problem:
In 5.4 you can drag and drop an office file to the edit view and the correct macro was used. For Word-Files it was viewdoc etc.

Now, in 5.7, all Office2013 Files (docx, pptx, ..) are linked with the viewfile-macro. You have to drag and drop, delete the viewfile macro, insert the viewdoc macro and link it to the attachment. Three steps more then in the old version..

Is there the possibility to fix these links in the settings?

Best,

Robin

[Stephanie Arnaud · Accepted solution]

Hi Robin,

Thanks for posting your question. I understand it was important for you to be able to have Office documents embedded on pages and scrollable, but using the viewfile-macro from Confluence 5.7 is the intended behaviour.

We made the decision to use the new macro for all file types, because it allows you to click on the document and access the new previewer and its powerful features, like the ability to comment on the file or upload new versions. You can now scroll through the file from within the previewer, instead of within the page. You will still have a preview on the page, but agreed that it's only a thumbnail, which is not scrollable.

Did you like the previous behaviour better?

Kind regards,

Stephanie

[Robin Peters]

I will try to communicate this change as a feature. But you know users... everything change of their daily work is bad initially. Is there a way back to the old way with the viewdoc macro etc.? Will the viewdoc/viewxls etc be deleted in new versions to force the users to the viewfile-macro?

[Robin Peters]

I had played with the "viewfile"-macro. From 5.4 to 5.7 I need three clicks to Edit a document. * click the viewfile-preview * click "..." on top to open drop-down * click "Edit in office" With viewdoc there was a direct link on the page to edit. It's a deterioration. Is there a way to get the edit-in-office back in the page with the "viewfile"?

[Stephanie Arnaud]

Unfortunately, it's not possible. I understand this new feature is a challenge for your organisation in terms of change management: in order to help you communicate the change to your users and explain how it can be helpful to them, I'd like to share with you this article from our blog: http://blogs.atlassian.com/2015/02/introducing-new-feedback-loop-confluence-5-7/ Hope that's helpful.

[Robin Peters]

Yes, I will communicate this. But I know that there are few users working with Office files. Of course they have to use this new way given by the manufacturer, but three clicks instead of one is hardly to communicate. Maybe in newer versions the one click solution is available again. Regards, Robin

[Stephanie Arnaud]

Hey Robin, I'd like to ask you a few follow up questions: 1. What kind of content are you creating with Word? The extended question is, is there a reason why you're creating this content in Word, instead of in a Confluence page? 2. What do your users miss the most about the viewdoc macro? The fact that it's embedded directly on the page, or is it really mostly about easily accessing the "edit in office" functionality? Thanks! Stephanie

[Robin Peters]

Ok, Word-files are a bad exampe. We have many xls or ppt files which we have to share with customers and other externals. So we prepare them in our internal confluence and want to edit them fast. But if the viewfile-way is your new trend, we have to follow. I updated the confluence tuesday and several users complained the complicated way to edit the files in offices like I inspected. It's not the preview of the content. For this, the new preview window works fine. But one other big malus: The small "viewfile"-preview direct on the page do not show the attachment-title and it's to small to identify the correct attached file with the thumbnail. The three choosable preview sizes are not enough. Is there a way to insert a new size field? like the image macro. Small/mid/big and additional the possibility to specify the width in px?

[Stephanie Arnaud]

Regarding a faster way to access the "edit in office" functionality, we could add a button from the thumbnail so that it would be similar to how it used to be. However I'm wondering if users will not need to open the preview anyway, to actually read the doc before editing it? By the way, you can create an improvement request here: https://jira.atlassian.com Regarding the attachment title, I found this improvement request https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/CONF-13936 and you can vote for it. Regarding sizes, I would suggest you create one more improvement request. That aside, I'm very happy to hear that the new preview seem to work fine for your users :)