Display text when creating/editing a page

[Deleted user]

Is it possible to display some text that only appears when a page is being edited and gets hidden when the page is displayed?

We have a number of templates where it would be helpful to display some instructions when a user is editing the page.

I'm guessing this is probably straight forward, so please exclude the noob question. Any ideas welcome!

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist- · Accepted solution]

There's a really dirty and yet elegant trick for this in v3. I don't know if it's valid for 4, I haven't tried it, but the principle should be similar. The downside to this is that it's embedded in the page itself, so it's not an obvious box outside the editing area.

Create a user macro with a sensible name like "hidden". Make sure it renders the body of the input, and then don't put anything whatsoever in the body output. You can then write text like

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My document says

{hidden} Please don't put rude words in here {hidden}

that the penguin needs to go for a walk

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This will be shown when the user edits the page, but just viewing it will give them:

My document says that the penguin needs to go for a walk

[Deleted user]

Thanks Nic. I've implemented the macro and agree that it is an elegant solution. Given the new graphical layout of the text editor, the content within the macro is displayed nicely within a border and with a title. The content also accepts text formatting, so all in all a simple but really neat outcome. Thanks again.

[CharlesH]

I use the show-if macro from the CustomWare Visibility plugin to show messages to editors which only show up in that mode. One of the parameters for this macro relates to the "mode" the page is in: edit, view.

[Joerg Bencke]

Hi,
which confluence are you using - with the wikimarkup editor in 3.5.x, that is actually done with the "markup quickreference" on the side. So modifying that page on the server should suffice. Otherwise - check the sourcecode and copy those pages, replacing the "editor" page with your design.

Only trouble is, that is not "release-safe". So a feature-request in Jira and the link to vote on it here would be necessary :)

Remember to post your solution here, once you got it, that would be "perfect".

[Deleted user]

Hi Josch

We're using Confluence 4.2.3.

I'm not looking to provide standard text that is the same on every page, but rather intructions specific the template being used. I had pictured some kind of outcome like "comments" at the top of the page that don't appear when it's in normal View mode. I had in mind that the content would be part of the template and therefore copied into the page content when it's created from the template.

Thanks, Andrew