We run Confluence with the (default) en_GB locale and language. For our purposes, some of the boilerplate text needs changing. This post describes how to solve this problem with a partial British English language pack that overrides only part of the Confluence interface text.
…or how to display attachments in an unordered list.
Something that bugs me in Confluence is the way that attachments are shown. The default view is a big table with just about all the information related to each attachment.
This is great if you want all this detail, but I’m a simple soul with simple needs.
Krug suggested “Omit needless words”. In this case, it’s more of “Omit needless metadata”.
Enter {list-attachments} – a user macro that dispenses with the excess. It displays an unordered list with the filename, file size and last modified date. If there’s a comment for the attachment, this is displayed in the link text rather than the filename.
This is a really straightforward view of the attachments on the page.
Here’s a quick demo I wrote to test out the Google Analytics API.
It shows pageviews for an Atlassian Confluence wiki on a space by space basis.
You’ll need your own copy of Confluence hooked up to Google Analytics for the demo to work, so I’ve done a video demo too – no sound, sorry.
Confluence & Google Analytics Javascript API from David Simpson on Vimeo.
Here’s a quick screencast I made to show how easy it is to add custom segments – e.g. based on country/territory – to Google Analytics. There’s no audio. Sorry.
Adding custom segments to Google Analytics from David Simpson on Vimeo.
Having installed Google Analytics on Confluence, you need to ensure that you’re not lost in a world of pretty metrics.
Make sure that your new analytics toy produces something solid and actionable. Anything less is just a shiny curiosity that your organisation will soon fail to engage with.
This article presents 4 useful tips that really show the power of the analytics data available. Each one can help improve the success of your Confluence installation.
If you’re using the Verdana typeface in your printed documents, stop now.
There is no need and it is helping destroy the planet.
Verdana takes up about 19% more horizontal space than Arial. So a switch away from Verdana could reduce your paper costs by up to 19%. For further savings, switch to duplex printing at the same time.
If you need a font designed for readability, try the granddaddy of readable fonts – Helvetica – or at a pinch Arial.
Want to know who are the most active users on your Confluence wiki this week?
This wiki markup snippet should help. It tabulates:
h1. This Week's Wiki User Activity Charts
h2. Overall
{topusers:spaces=@all|timespan=1w|period=weekly|events=create,update,view|display=icon,title,count}
h2. Breakdown
<code>
|| Page Creation || Page Updates || Page Views || Page Popularity ||
| {topusers:spaces=@all|timespan=1w|period=weekly|events=create|display=icon,title,count} | {topusers:spaces=@all|timespan=1w|period=weekly|events=update|display=icon,title,count} | {topusers:spaces=@all|timespan=1w|period=weekly|events=view|display=icon,title,count} | {popular:spaces=@all|timespan=1w|period=weekly|events=view|display=icon,title,count} |
</code>I love Confluence. It’s simple. It’s easy to use. It’s hierarchical, so you can build a nice structure.
But…
I hate Confluence. I can’t find anything. Ever. It’s hierarchical, but which branch in the hierarchy is my content located in? Damnit, the Lucene powered search doesn’t seem to be able to find what I’m searching for.
My main gripe with Confluence is that by default it uses breadcrumb trails as primary navigation contrary to breadcrumbs best practices. They are no replacement for the real deal.
Breadcrumbs are secondary navigation designed as an alternative to the main navigational scheme. As such they give no context to relate the current page to others at the same level in the hierarchy. Breadcrumbs cannot aid in navigation within a level. So using breadcrumbs as primary navigation leads to a lack of awareness of the structure of the website/wiki space and thus confusing.
With this in mind, I decided to add a consistent primary navigational scheme to our global Confluence template. As Atlassian have in the past been known to change the templating scheme a little on upgrade to newer versions of Confluence, it is important to limit the changes to be as minimal as possible to limit ongoing templating maintenance issues.
You’ve chosen Confluence as your Enterprise wiki and got it installed. People are using it. But how many people?
You could have a look at the Global Activity page on Confluence, but this might confuse matters.
You’ll get to see graphs, but what do they really mean? The Global Activity statistics are at best very basic.
Better still, install Google Analytics and you’ll have a much more accurate idea of what’s going on. Best of all, it’s really easy to install.
If someone using a desktop Twitter client (such as TweetDeck or Twirl) clicks on a link I’ve posted to my blog, the Google Analytics referer information will be blank. It registers as direct traffic to the website.
This is fine when linking to other people’s websites — I’m not worried about them — but I’d like to know where that traffic to my websites comes from.
I generally shorten URLs with a service like bit.ly (which does provide basic statistics on click throughs). The trouble here is that you still miss the referrer information on your Google Analytics account.
The Analytics Talk blog post — Twitter and Google Analytics: What to Track — gives a good solution to this problem.
Put simply, before you shorten the URL, add the following GA campaign request parameters to the end:
?utm_campaign=blog&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=micro-blog
e.g.
http://example.com/
becomes
http://example.com/?utm_campaign=blog&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=micro-blog
Now you can track referrers from Twitter clients within Google Analytics using
Traffic Sources | Campaigns. Nice.
Check out Twitter and Google Analytics: What to Track by Justin Cutroni for the details.
Aside: Justin’s Google Analytics Short Cut PDF book ($10 from O’Reilly) is a great read, but it was written in 2007 before the last GA update. I hope Justin gets the time to release an updated version soon.