Display pages menu on Confluence space homepage

[Zoltán Lehóczky]

With the new Confluence design the menu tree of pages is not displayed on the left-hand bar any more. So if you open a space first you need to go to Pages to see all pages in that space (and then opening a page will show a view similar to the old design, where on the left bar there's a pages menu tree).

What can we do for the menu to always include the page tree, just as before, even when opening the homepage of a space? I realize we could go to all spaces and add the Page Tree macro to the homepage, but that's not the same (space homepages already have enough content like this) and we'd need to modify all existing spaces.

[Jovian Tse]

@Bruno Miretti, @Zoltán Lehóczky and @Susan Ostreicher your opinions so right. Without pages tree showing in the left is extremely inconvenient to our users. 

Many platforms do providing documents editing, sharing and collaborations, like Google Drive, but they're just bunch of files. Everyone has to organize the view of the same set of files in their own way and effort, which cause great inconvenient and confusions in usage. They also have search functionality but that would not help in this problem.

Confluence has a page tree in mind, so everyone help organizing the only hierarachy, that's why we want to use it! That's why it should be shown in the first place -- most of the users only look at the pages and the structure for their work, not to those function buttons!

The Trees that organizing pages is NOT an old fasion way of displaying files. In constrast, the tree itself is already a kind of content/knowledge of the organization! It helps to show the company structures and indicates how the things in office should go together - Not only those bunch of pages!

@Shannon SAt least there should be options to allow us to choose what always and at the first sight to have in the left side bar. It can't be like this: no choice, just gone!

Now Atlassian only allow opt out to old look for some days and then turn it back to new. I don't know how I can explain to users in my office.

Atlassian please don't rush to an fancy appearance just for boosting sales growth and throw away your best part in design! Think about the people who already using your product every working day for many years! These users are your real supporters, and where your reputation comes from!

[Shannon S]

@Jovian Tse, @Bruno Miretti, @Zoltán Lehóczky, and @Susan Ostreicher,

Once again, thank you all for your feedback. I've found the issue reported as a feature request (more like reversion!) to the old behavior:

- CONFCLOUD-56841

It will help if you can all vote on that request and comment your feedback there, it will be seen by our development team. You can help explain why the old behavior was more beneficial to help with the usage case.

Thank you again for your help and support.

Kind Regards,
Shannon

[Susan Ostreicher]

I see this is a common question today...

In our case, this is especially confusing because we have only one space and the site landing page is set to the space homepage.  For end users, there's no distinction between the "site" and the "space", so the need for the global sidebar (as opposed to the space sidebar that includes a page tree) won't be clear to them.  

[Layne_Sadler]

Not being able to see the tree by default is ridiculous. This kind of stuff is why we can't get our commercial team off onedrive.

[Bruno Miretti]

Hi Shannon,

You said: "When you are on a page inside of a space (so not the overview page of the space), then it should display the page tree on the side automatically."

The navigation between a "parent" space (documentation home site) and its "child" spaces (products documentation) is more complicated now because when you're looking at a product documentation (child space), you need first to get back to the overview page to see the space shortcuts, they are not displayed anymore in the child pages of the space and of course, you need to hope the space admin added a shortcut to the parent space (hey... he did this with the left pane customization but he lost everything after the migration).

Please display again the space shortcuts in all pages with the page tree as it was before.

Thanks

[Zoltán Lehóczky]

Thanks Shannon. Yes, I'm talking about the new Confluence Cloud design.

I see exactly what you describe and my issue is with #2, i.e. there is no page tree on the left bar when viewing a space's overview page.

This was different with the previous design, where the page tree was displayed. The problem is that with the new design now it's not one, but two steps (at least) to get to a page once you open a space. This needlessly complicates something all of our team members do every day, multiple times. (I know there are workarounds like adding a page tree macro to the overview page - though I explained above why we don't want to do this - and e.g. bookmarking the "Pages" page, but these are just worarkounds, not solutions.)

[Shannon S]

Hi Zoltán,

Thank you for confirming #2 is the case you've run into. So it's from the overview page you do not see the tree, and not the fact you haven't set a space homepage. Is this correct?

If so, you can also provide feedback about the new look by clicking your profile picture in the bottom left-hand corner and select the Feedback option under New Look.

Kind Regards,
Shannon

[Zoltán Lehóczky]

Hi,

yes, that's correct. The homepage is set to the space home page as it is with Confluence by default. When opening this page with the old design the page tree was displayed on the left, now it's not.

The fact that this feature is just gone is quite an inconvenience for us. I've submitted feedback but the lack of public discussion on these (at least from what I could find; one can't even comment under announcements like https://confluence.atlassian.com/confcloud/new-navigation-and-a-new-look-for-confluence-881536766.html) is alarming too.

Thanks,

Zoltán

[Shannon S]

Zoltán,

The feature isn't actually gone, but the page tree is collapsed by default when you're viewing the space from the overview. You can click on pages and access the page tree from there. But thank you for submitting feedback! I've heard a lot about this new functionality so the feedback will help to improve this in a way that is less confusing to end users.

Regarding the comments on the update, it's not possible to comment on our updates and knowledgebase articles. We use the Community and your feedback for this purpose.

Thank you for your understanding!

Kind Regards,
Shannon

[Alison Huang]

"You can click on pages and access the page tree from there."

For me, I am not even able to click the "pages" and nowhere to find out the "page tree". The product should be designed for convenience, but for this "new" feature or outlook, it goes the opposite way.

[Shannon S]

Hello @Alison Huang,

I'd love to know more about your issue and help you solve it. Would you be able to raise a new question describing the issue you're encountering? You can link it here when you have and we can start troubleshooting your issue! 

Take care,

Shannon

[Alison Huang]

Thank you for your reply. After 12 hours working, I figured it out by myself and none of the related questions give the right answer. 

[Shannon S]

Hi @Alison Huang,

Thank you for confirming that. Confluence Cloud is always being updated, so it's likely that the questions you were finding on Community were out-of-date for your current situation, which is why they weren't working.

If you encounter any issues in the future, I would encourage you to raise a brand new question so we can give you up-to-date information.

If you'd like to share with us here what solved the issue for you, it can help other users in the future who run into the same problem.

Regards,

Shannon

[Shannon S]

Hi Zoltán,

I believe you're referring to the Confluence Cloud New Look, correct?

1. When you are on a page inside of a space (so not the overview page of the space), then it should display the page tree on the side automatically.
2. However, if you are on the overview page of the space, then you will not see the page tree. A page tree will also not display if you have not set a space homepage.

If you can confirm that neither are true, and are still having issues seeing your page tree, please let me know, and I can have a look at your Cloud instance. No need to provide your URL as long as it's the one registered to the same email address you use here on Community.

Kind Regards,
Shannon