Can you add plugins/macros to a template in Confluence?

[Mick Davidson]

Good Afternoon,

A colleague wants to create a template that includes a plugin. He can do this, but the plugins don't work when he previews the template.

He's created a table in the macro that looks like this (partial view):

||Support office hours | {multi-excerpt:name=SuppOH}<TBC>{multi-excerpt} |

The error msg says:

Error formatting macro: multi-excerpt: java.lang.NullPointerException
TBC

Anyone got any input into this? We're running Confluence 4.2.5.

Cheers.

[CharlesH · Accepted solution]

The key to this is that templates require old fashioned wiki markup (for now, in 4.3 it should be improved). The easiest way I have found to prepare wiki markup, even for someone with relevant expertise, is to use a nice utility which will accept content in the new style and produce wiki markup which you can then copy and paste intoma template: http://www.amnet.net.au/~ghannington/confluence/wikifier/rt/ This blog post explains in more detail what it does, with some examples. I've used it on complex pages (panels, tables, HTML regions, scaffold fields, reporting tags...) and its done a perfect job. http://ffeathers.wordpress.com/2012/06/07/how-to-convert-confluence-xml-storage-format-to-wiki-markup/

[Mick Davidson]

Charles,

Thanks, I'll pass your info on, but I suspect we'll wait until 4.3 arrives. :)

Cheers.

[Mick Davidson]

Charles/anyone,

I'm trying to add the children display macro in a template but you can't do that.

I've tried using the wikifier as shown above, but if I enter {Children Display} it produces some code, but this code also doesn't work either - it results in the Unknown Macro msg.

I've had a look through the user info for info on wiki markup and can't find anything that relates to child pages.

Any idea what the code could be? I'll raise a seperate question about missing macro markup.

Cheers.

[CharlesH]

Mick,

The markup for the children display macro is {children}. You shoud enter that as is into the template and it should work fine (just tested it myself in Conf 4.2.1 to confirm).

Regards,

Charles

[Mick Davidson]

Charles,

thanks, that worked!

Cheers.

[Stefan Eike]

Hi Maurycy,

You should not care for the template preview. It looks broken most of the time. If it works, it should be fine.

Best regards,

Stefan

[Maurycy Widera]

I have tried above link and it has converted a working page to

{multiexcerpt:MultiExcerptName=ProdVersion|atlassian-macro-output-type=BLOCK}v1.2.3{multiexcerpt}

I still see the same error message when previewing the template but it actually works when I create a page using the template.

Thanks a lot for your help :)