Confluence sidebar disappears when I start to edit a page. I am using a trial server version. I have used it for a few days without a problem. Please help!

[veera praneeth · Accepted solution]

When editing a page in a space, you won't be seeing any side bar as the focus is on editing the page. Side bar appears only in 'view mode' If you wish to reorder a page or page shortcuts, you can do that from space tools. Also in order to access the space tools you should be the space's owner. 

[Deleted user]

To focus on the edit page sounds understandable for hiding the side bar in this case, at the first glance.

But from my experience it is counterproductive:

• If I want to change at a specific position of a larger page, I lose track of that position while change from view to edit mode – because of the changed width (with/without the side bar) the paragraphs become reformated. At least the text position last shown in the view will be scrolled to automatically in edit mode. But due to the heavy reordering in the paragraphs it's hard to relocate the position which shall be changed…
• Sometimes while editing I need to look back in some other pages, which's links normally would be shown in the side bar. If the side bar is missing, I have to open a new Confluence tab, go there to the page I am editing, to have the same side bar content, and only then I am able to click the relevant link. If it was still there while editing, a click with the middle mouse button had opened it directly in a new tab. 

So, please provide an option to keep side bars enabled even while edit mode is active. 

[Rodney Hughes]

99.9% of my editing is about the stuff on that page so the side bar would be unnecessary clutter. When you are editing a Word document you don't have the File>Open listing hanging around on the side of the Word screen in case you want to open another document.

When you are in edit mode, there are a couple of little icons up next to the page title.  One is a lock to set the page restrictions and one is a tree icon to move the page to another Parent - which includes the "Recently Viewed option which I find very handy even if I have to open a new tab frst to go to that page - you can also click the "snail trail links of the page you areediting to open the new tab.

[Deleted user]

Thanks for the latter hint, I'll try that out, tomorrow at work, where I have to use Confluence.

Nice that you are so gifted that you can do documentation so continuously. Sometimes that luck comes to me as well. But in most cases I have just to add half a dozen of hints, results, whatever, to an existing page. I need to reorder grown page content quickly, between all the other work – just in the moment when I realize, while reading at a page or searching for something, that some ordering might be helpful. It's a permanent, stepwise process, driven by lots of colleagues. Just a wiki.

The moment where I miss a permanent side bar most extremely is when while reading I find a wrong wording, or just a typo. Not only, that opening the edit mode needs more than a second and not less, the page content wildly moves up and down and right and left, until the paragraphes are somewhat used to the new width. I completely lose track of the typo position and have to read some lines, to find it again, in most cases.

Thatswhy I wish for a optionally permanent side bar. Thanks for your reply.

[Rodney Hughes]

I am a "faciltator" for a colalborative industry association so I like you am doing a bit her eand a bit there - so thinking ahead and havng things open as extra tabs does help me a lot

And I agree - jumping in and out of edit mode can be a bit frustrating when you loose the place where you were editing ...

Try using the preview option at the bottom of the screen instead of saving to get back to View mode then opening in edit again .. although I think going from preview back to edit still goes back to the top of the page :(

I have used the Expand macro to keep the view mode "clean and short" but that doesn't help scrolling through the whole page in edit mode :(

So the only option then is to consider structuring the page into multiple pages to keep them as a reasonable size to scroll through. 

[Deleted user]

I agree with most of your suggestions, like working with multiple tabs and just keeping probably needed stuff there easily reachable. Also in a linked system it makes sense to split huge pages into linked sub-information, at least sometimes.

My typical use case where I really have problems with the missing side bar is when I just read through our pages to get some details documented there, and then find a position, where I feel: not just a comment here, that should be corrected. If I am in the middle of providing some new information at all, yes, then it's okay for me to just stay in the edit mode and hold some useful stuff open in additional tabs. If then I wanna save the intermediate result, because I know, others are waiting for that information, then I quickly safe and edit it again and typically land almost where my last edit was (maybe there is a 'just safe but stay in edit mode' option, but that's another question).

For the very next time I tend to make a try to solve my problem by using the Greasemonkey browser plugin, catching the edit situation and set a left margin then to simulate the missing side bar.

For the future I hopefully placed a suggestion for confluence: https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/CONFSERVER-52786.

[Derek White]

I just want to be able to open another confluence page in a new tab. I need to reference another page, for example. As of now, I have to open new tab, type in confluence, and hit enter. Why can't I just right-click and open in new tab from Edit mode? There is seriously not a single link on this page - they are all JS buttons. It's ridiculous.

Why not use a proper anchor tag for the logo in the top-left? Why not have a full-screen toggle for editing, when off we can see the header and sidebar?

I get claustrophobic responses when trapped in edit mode.

[Rodney Hughes]

@Derek White 

At the top of the editing window there is the "snail trail" or 'breadcrumbs" just above the page title.

you can right-click any of those and select "Open in a new tab" or "Open in a new window"

[Rodney Hughes]

Deleting pages is done via the Ellipsis - the three dot icon top right of the view screen (as long as page delete is included in your Permissions settings)

[Tom Fahey]

Thank you Veera! Also, I cannot delete a page. I am the admin and the space's owner. I changed the permissiongs to allow delete but it does not show up on the ... menu. Why can't I delete a page? Thank you!

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