I have finished the first few tutorials for confluence developers. I originally took up this research as I wanted to create some simple Macros that would conditionally include content on pages created from a global template.
Specifically, I wanted confluence contributors to add a page from a template. I wanted them to select custom content using text boxes on the template and have fixed text blocks be added to the resulting page based on their selections. Very simple I would think. In the old confluence, building simple macros that would conditionally add content was straight forward. Now I have a pretty good idea on how to have a macro insert content into a page, and I can have the template store variables on the page the macro could interrogate to decide on content. But the problem I have is persistence. I don’t have a server running on the web I can reference to have my macro’s hosted.
Will Confluence host my macros? How do I upload my macro for hosting? If I cannot host these Macros on Confluence, where are these macros normally hosted?
You are right, in the Cloud vendors need to host their apps themselves. A pretty easy way to do this would be to use a PaaS provider such as Heroku. Though if you plan to put your app on the marketplace and expect it to get big you might want to do a little more research on hosting your app appropriately.
Hi @SteveB , Confluence cloud needs a separate app to host e.g. a macro.
Heroku (as mentioned by Sven) is one of the simplest solutions.
Because Heroku manages the hosting, security and https etc are much simpler than other solutions. However learning Heroku still takes some time. Feel free to ask for help.
I am not looking to build anything for commercial use. I have a team of about 25 and I need to create some templates for their work products. I want the template to add content when they check a box. That’s it. Just add text to the form when they check a box. I think the answer is, it can no longer be done without buying a server from a hosting group, writing a bunch of code and deploying it, and more. Seems like an atom bomb for an ant. I should probably move on to a simpler solution outside of Atlassian.
Generally you are right: Cloud apps are harder to develop and deploy at the moment. But in your situation you should really give Heroku a shot. The free tier allows your app to run up to 18 hours per day. It just means you will experience a cold start sometimes if Heroku puts your app server to sleep.
Deploying on Heroku can be as simple as executing git push heroku master if you already have an account set up. Heroku also provides you with a free database if needed. See how easy it is with Spring Boot for example.
Thanks. I’ll think about it. I have to weigh pro/cons of doing that. I have already moved to a SharePoint implementation (which I hate). I have been pursuing this direction as education and a stubborn/inability to let things go. If this gets me to closure I will have a choice to make.
Yes you’ll definitely learn a thing or two doing it. It also is a very nice feeling to deploy your first app to the Cloud.
One thing you should also consider is: Once you know how to do this / once you have your app deployed, you can use the same server/repo/dyno for all the integrations that you’re building. And if the cold starts annoy you it’s only 7$ per month to get rid of them.
@SteveB there was a talk at Atlas Camp that mentioned Confluence Cloud will soon have the ability to self-host custom macros, although they mentioned some limitations. However, you can actually achieve a lot with front-edit scripting and using simple file hosting options like S3 (it just needs to support HTTPS). But yes, not quite as straight forward as User Macros on the server edition but Cloud is a different environment. I currently provide a free app in the marketplace that runs on GAE at zero cost.
