Jira Cloud new issue view editor changes

[njain]

What’s changing, and why?

Over the past couple of months, we’ve been rolling out a new issue view, which includes changes to the Jira Cloud rich text editor. Some of you may have noticed changes in the editing experience, like new functionality being added, but some of you have also sent feedback about the removal of wiki markup.

We’ve removed wiki markup from the new editor in favor of full markdown support. This is a significant change, and we thank all of you for the feedback you’ve sent. While the adjustment can be difficult, we know this will allow us to provide a more modern and consistent editing experience. The new editor in Jira Cloud is much more consistent with our other products like Confluence and Bitbucket, so should feel very familiar if you’re also a Confluence or Bitbucket user.

You can see the relevant markdown syntax in our documentation page.

When will I see this?

You’ll see the new editor whenever you’re working in the new Jira issue view. The new issue view is rolled out for most of you on the board and backlog, and about half of Jira Software sites are already seeing the new view for full-page issues. If you don’t see this just yet, you’ll likely see it in the next couple of months.

For Jira Service Desk users, we’ve only just started the rollout of the new issue view. Many of you will begin to see it in the next few months. You can read more about Jira Service Desk-specific changes in our documentation.

Some editor features like tables and emoji are tied to certain aspects of the new issue view rollout. If you don’t have the new view for full-page issues, you won’t be able to create tables and other panels in the new issue view just yet.

The new issue view will be rolled out to all Jira Software users in the couple of months (still with the ability to turn it off for now should you need to). In the meantime, to create tables you’ll need to click through to the old issue view.

Once you have the new issue view for full-page issues, you’ll be able to create tables and emoji in the new view.

Markdown and Keyboard Shortcuts

Rather than remembering different shortcuts for different types of content, you now only need one: the slash command. Type / to open a list of macros and other content that you can add to your rich text fields.

For those of you who prefer using markup languages, you can type or paste in markdown and we’ll convert it into fully formatted content as you go.

Keyboard shortcuts have also been updated to be consistent with industry standards, so many of our keyboard shortcuts will be the same as in the other apps you use.

You can read more about markdown formatting in Jira Cloud in our documentation.

[david2]

Hi @njain,
what about the REST APIs? Will we be able to receive and send rich text contents using markdown (or the legacy wiki markup)? Using the JavaScript format is impossible for most apps that generate text content (think templating).

[njain]

Hi @david2,

Currently we support wiki markup through the REST API v2, and the new editor via the v3 API.

As of yet, there have been no announcements on when v2 will be deprecated. It is not expected to be deprecated within 2019, and there will also be a 6 month deprecation period. v2 will only be deprecated once v3 is no longer in beta, for which a few pieces of functionality are yet to be added.

Cheers,
Nehal

[maciej.dudziak]

Hi @njain,

Will it be possible to pass markdown using rest v3, e.g. to edit issue description?

[ademoss]

With these editor changes, are there any plans to allow vendors to create custom macros in Jira Cloud, the way Confluence Cloud does?

[WayneBryan]

@njain Where can I find the V3 Issue create/update REST API?
When will it be generally available for Jira Cloud?

It seems like a broken migration strategy to push the new View on everyone (I can personally opt out of the lab but as an admin I have NO way to opt out my company), without an API to manage rich text that is out of beta for both on-prem and cloud offerings

Today when we put in markup via the old API then edit vis new API we get a broken experience

[njain]

Hi @maciej.dudziak,

Markdown is simply auto formatting for when interacting with Jira using the UI.
In your case, you will need to pass ADF (Atlassian Document Format) using rest v3.

Please refer to https://developer.atlassian.com/cloud/jira/platform/rest/v3/ and https://developer.atlassian.com/cloud/jira/platform/apis/document/structure/

Cheers,
Nehal

[maciej.dudziak]

Hi @njain,
I am aware of that. I was asking if Atlassian plans to allow other formats than ADF in rest API, especially to edit an issue

But I assume that you don’t have such plans
Kind regards

[njain]

Hi @maciej.dudziak, ADF is the only format that the v3 rest API will accept. We do not currently foresee changing this to accept any other formats.

Cheers,
Nehal

[BasOvink]

I’d advise a development team to start with with the code that translates from the markup in the existing issue view to HTML. The decisions that code makes are tried and tested by now.

Put the output in arrays of categorized text bits instead of HTML tags and then build a translation from the arrays to your new format. At least this way the starting point is the old, working markup.

However, i gave up already and I am working in the old view. A pity since the rest of the new view is more useful to me. I am afraid you will not fix this and at some point enforce all users to the new, broken editor!

[rchiquete]

After doing some tests I noticed that text is stored differently in the new issue view editor, as instead of using
for line breaks it is now using “\r\n”. Is this something intended ? If so, do we have it documented? This is important as it could break integrations and users developments who rely on the older line-break style.