7 ms·

This reminds me of Atlassian's god-awful WYSIWYG editor. In both cases, I get that some users can't or don't like to use a machine grammar/markup, however simp

by tbabb 7y ago

This reminds me of Atlassian's god-awful WYSIWYG editor. In both cases, I get that some users can't or don't like to use a machine grammar/markup, however simple. For some people markup is bad UX. Give them a WYSIWYG; that's fine. But don't remove the markup editor if your WYSIWYG editor is anything but a perfect one-two-one replacement for markup (and I have never seen one that satisfies that). IIRC there was a time when Confluence axed their markup, and inevitably a table or a template would get completely screwed, and there was nothing you could do but recreate it. TERRIBLE design.

Twirrim 7y ago
> IIRC there was a time when Confluence axed their markup, and inevitably a table or a template would get completely screwed, and there was nothing you could do but recreate it. TERRIBLE design. There was. I was using Confluence at the time, and it broke a lot of things. There was a wonderful filed bug at the time with a lot of angry people on it, where they promised to bring the old mechanism back as an option, and they never did. That told me everything I needed to know about Atlassian.
- abbadadda 7y ago
  Atlassian Jira/Confluence SUUUUUCKS. They have given up on making anything better. I try to do as much as possible on Markdown files in a GitLab repo using Atom's Markdown preview (e.g., documentation). Gliffy diagrams are still OK.
  - xref 7y ago
    Same, README.md for most everything I can. Searching for info in the repo is also more productive than the search nightmare in jira/confluence.
  - samanthalee233 7y ago
    GitLab employee here, nice to hear that GitLab is helping solve some of these workflow issues for you.
    - abbadadda 7y ago
      For sure! One thing to take a look at might be markdown numbering rendering in the browser. E.g., if I use `1. 1. 1. ` I only get ones, not 123 (last I checked).
superbaconman 7y ago
I stopped using confluence the moment I realized the markdown editor was removed. I don't care so much about the flavor, but there's something very annoying about needing to get fancy with the way I edit text to preserve formatting.
- kstrauser 7y ago
  Same here. I'd made some nice (and quite simple) tooling to parse docstrings out of a Python project and turn them into Markdown that I could copy-and-paste into Confluence. It was so convenient to run something like "make documents" to basically compile the project's documentation from inspecting the project itself! But then Confluence broke their editor by making it WYSIWYG-only. And in response, I broke Confluence by convincing our CTO to ditch that now worthless documentation system for something else.
  - alexis_fr 7y ago
    What is something else? I’m interested, if it’s available for download (not cloud).
    - HarveyKandola 7y ago
      Been working on Documize[0] for a while now and we get plenty of Confluence people moving over. Open source core supporting WYSIWYG, Markdown, Code and more. [0] https://github.com/documize/community https://github.com/documize/community
bartread 7y ago
> This reminds me of Atlassian's god-awful WYSIWYG editor. Oh my goodness: triggered. I've barred the use of Confluence at our company specifically because of this. "But, but, we used it at blah company." "Yes, so did I at blahblah company, and it was unbelievably crappy and made me angry every time I had to edit a document: we're not using it." I DO NOT want to have to use what amounts to an extremely buggy, capricious, and neutered version of Microsoft Word 6 to edit the contents of a web page. I will become extremely displeased with you if you waste my time by trying to persuade me it's a good idea. It's not.
- kelseydh 7y ago
  Yeah, the very first time I used Confluence I was in shock of how developer's at one time could have thought this was a good or useful product for discussing/planning code changes. For ticketing software, I find Clubhouse to be much better than JIRA. Normal markdown that doesn't drive you insane. Much slicker all around.
  - alexis_fr 7y ago
    Concerning Clubhouse.io, it looks great, is there a download version? I know “Cloud is the way to go”, but I work in Men’s Rights (DV abuses, etc) and it is usually something that cloud companies don’t want on their platform, so we’re constantly at risk of being revoked.
    - lima 7y ago
      Phabricator's ticketing system is excellent, and it's fully open source. Probably the best open source project management tool out there. It's also very easy to self-host.
    - benhurmarcel 7y ago
      No modern software works locally, it's always all in the cloud. That's why most large companies (and some cases like yours) stick with the big guys like Atlassian and Microsoft; the new competition doesn't support their data requirements.
function_seven 7y ago
Same here. I had to resort to making all edits in my browser's devtools instead. If a page in our Confluence wiki looks decent, there's a good chance it's because I hand-edited the underlying HTML. (There's also a good chance it's old, because I've largely given up on using Confluence for new articles. I just email distro lists like it's 2001)
- igetspam 7y ago
  When I had to use confluence, I did all my editing in gists and copied the rendered version into confluence. I've done that with jira too but the copy/paste seems to get mangled.
jhomedall 7y ago
They're currently trying to force this into pull requests in Bitbucket. Right now you can revert to the old-style pull requests with Markdown support, but that is going to go away once the new system is out of beta. I really regret going with Atlassian here; I would have advised against it if I knew about this. I will definitely advise against it in the future.
- igetspam 7y ago
  This is why I heavily advocate for not using Atlassian products. I use the "can't trust Australia" statement as a supporting argument but the terrible editor is what started my crusade. My company uses Jira but I do all my tracking in Clubhouse. We have Confluence but most of us write docs in Google Docs because it's less painful. I recently got us moving away from Bitbucket too. If Slack stands by this change (like they did with removing the IRC bridge), I'll be pushing hard to get rid of it before we start growing.
  - kelseydh 7y ago
    100% agree that Clubhouse > JIRA. If I hear a company uses JIRA, I will actually question whether I want to work there.
    - benhurmarcel 7y ago
      Can you recommend a replacement for Jira that can be self-hosted? Many companies cannot store their data on a third-party server.
      - ansgri 7y ago
        There's at least Redmine. Uses Textile by default, but there were plugins for Markdown.
        wila 7y ago
        Redmine nowadays also comes by default with Markdown. Menu Administration -> Settings -> General tab There's a drop down for Text formatting which you can set to Markdown.
tekkk 7y ago
Fun fact: the editor is open-source (I think this is the same) https://bitbucket.org/atlassian/atlaskit-mk-2/src/master/packages/editor/ https://bitbucket.org/atlassian/atlaskit-mk-2/src/master/pac... As I have been fiddling with ProseMirror I've found out that their editor is the most extensive PM-based editor out there.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
Cub3 7y ago
Every Atlassian product used / still uses a different markdown format, infuriating
- sharken 7y ago
  In Azure DevOps there are two Markdown formats, Project Wiki (Default project wiki and Pull Requests) and Code Wiki (Repository as Wiki). It's quite annoying.
xbryanx 7y ago
I’m surprised at this. The latest cloud editing experience in Confluence (Cloud) is pretty great in my opinion.
jasonsync 7y ago
Yes, was looking for this post. I rarely used the markup in the previous editor, but the new editor is so buggy I keep looking for an icon to switch to markup.
Aaronstotle 7y ago
Confluence/Jira is the worst product suite I've ever had the misfortune of using, I can't fathom how it became popular or who finds it useful.
- mdaniel 7y ago
  Elsewhere in this thread is the HIPPO acronym, and that's how one ends up with Jira/Confluence: "no one got fired for buying it" combined with "pointy haired bosses love it" It's been my overwhelming experience that managers love the _idea_ of Jira, but then the day-to-day in the trenches experience of battling its workflow, its markup, its ... everything ... gets pushed down onto busy people, and even if enough engineers revolt, now you have a "well, we're already so committed to Jira we can't leave now" style reply (again, in my experience)

by tbabb 7y ago

Twirrim 7y ago

> IIRC there was a time when Confluence axed their markup, and inevitably a table or a template would get completely screwed, and there was nothing you could do but recreate it. TERRIBLE design. There was. I was using Confluence at the time, and it broke a lot of things. There was a wonderful filed bug at the time with a lot of angry people on it, where they promised to bring the old mechanism back as an option, and they never did. That told me everything I needed to know about Atlassian.

abbadadda 7y ago
Atlassian Jira/Confluence SUUUUUCKS. They have given up on making anything better. I try to do as much as possible on Markdown files in a GitLab repo using Atom's Markdown preview (e.g., documentation). Gliffy diagrams are still OK.
- xref 7y ago
  Same, README.md for most everything I can. Searching for info in the repo is also more productive than the search nightmare in jira/confluence.
- samanthalee233 7y ago
  GitLab employee here, nice to hear that GitLab is helping solve some of these workflow issues for you.
  - abbadadda 7y ago
    For sure! One thing to take a look at might be markdown numbering rendering in the browser. E.g., if I use `1. 1. 1. ` I only get ones, not 123 (last I checked).

superbaconman 7y ago

I stopped using confluence the moment I realized the markdown editor was removed. I don't care so much about the flavor, but there's something very annoying about needing to get fancy with the way I edit text to preserve formatting.

kstrauser 7y ago
Same here. I'd made some nice (and quite simple) tooling to parse docstrings out of a Python project and turn them into Markdown that I could copy-and-paste into Confluence. It was so convenient to run something like "make documents" to basically compile the project's documentation from inspecting the project itself! But then Confluence broke their editor by making it WYSIWYG-only. And in response, I broke Confluence by convincing our CTO to ditch that now worthless documentation system for something else.
- alexis_fr 7y ago
  What is something else? I’m interested, if it’s available for download (not cloud).
  - HarveyKandola 7y ago
    Been working on Documize[0] for a while now and we get plenty of Confluence people moving over. Open source core supporting WYSIWYG, Markdown, Code and more. [0] https://github.com/documize/community https://github.com/documize/community

bartread 7y ago

> This reminds me of Atlassian's god-awful WYSIWYG editor. Oh my goodness: triggered. I've barred the use of Confluence at our company specifically because of this. "But, but, we used it at blah company." "Yes, so did I at blahblah company, and it was unbelievably crappy and made me angry every time I had to edit a document: we're not using it." I DO NOT want to have to use what amounts to an extremely buggy, capricious, and neutered version of Microsoft Word 6 to edit the contents of a web page. I will become extremely displeased with you if you waste my time by trying to persuade me it's a good idea. It's not.

kelseydh 7y ago
Yeah, the very first time I used Confluence I was in shock of how developer's at one time could have thought this was a good or useful product for discussing/planning code changes. For ticketing software, I find Clubhouse to be much better than JIRA. Normal markdown that doesn't drive you insane. Much slicker all around.
- alexis_fr 7y ago
  Concerning Clubhouse.io, it looks great, is there a download version? I know “Cloud is the way to go”, but I work in Men’s Rights (DV abuses, etc) and it is usually something that cloud companies don’t want on their platform, so we’re constantly at risk of being revoked.
  - lima 7y ago
    Phabricator's ticketing system is excellent, and it's fully open source. Probably the best open source project management tool out there. It's also very easy to self-host.
  - benhurmarcel 7y ago
    No modern software works locally, it's always all in the cloud. That's why most large companies (and some cases like yours) stick with the big guys like Atlassian and Microsoft; the new competition doesn't support their data requirements.

function_seven 7y ago

Same here. I had to resort to making all edits in my browser's devtools instead. If a page in our Confluence wiki looks decent, there's a good chance it's because I hand-edited the underlying HTML. (There's also a good chance it's old, because I've largely given up on using Confluence for new articles. I just email distro lists like it's 2001)

igetspam 7y ago
When I had to use confluence, I did all my editing in gists and copied the rendered version into confluence. I've done that with jira too but the copy/paste seems to get mangled.

jhomedall 7y ago

They're currently trying to force this into pull requests in Bitbucket. Right now you can revert to the old-style pull requests with Markdown support, but that is going to go away once the new system is out of beta. I really regret going with Atlassian here; I would have advised against it if I knew about this. I will definitely advise against it in the future.

igetspam 7y ago
This is why I heavily advocate for not using Atlassian products. I use the "can't trust Australia" statement as a supporting argument but the terrible editor is what started my crusade. My company uses Jira but I do all my tracking in Clubhouse. We have Confluence but most of us write docs in Google Docs because it's less painful. I recently got us moving away from Bitbucket too. If Slack stands by this change (like they did with removing the IRC bridge), I'll be pushing hard to get rid of it before we start growing.
- kelseydh 7y ago
  100% agree that Clubhouse > JIRA. If I hear a company uses JIRA, I will actually question whether I want to work there.
  - benhurmarcel 7y ago
    Can you recommend a replacement for Jira that can be self-hosted? Many companies cannot store their data on a third-party server.
    - ansgri 7y ago
      There's at least Redmine. Uses Textile by default, but there were plugins for Markdown.
      - wila 7y ago
        Redmine nowadays also comes by default with Markdown. Menu Administration -> Settings -> General tab There's a drop down for Text formatting which you can set to Markdown.

tekkk 7y ago

Fun fact: the editor is open-source (I think this is the same) https://bitbucket.org/atlassian/atlaskit-mk-2/src/master/packages/editor/ https://bitbucket.org/atlassian/atlaskit-mk-2/src/master/pac... As I have been fiddling with ProseMirror I've found out that their editor is the most extensive PM-based editor out there.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

Cub3 7y ago

Every Atlassian product used / still uses a different markdown format, infuriating

sharken 7y ago
In Azure DevOps there are two Markdown formats, Project Wiki (Default project wiki and Pull Requests) and Code Wiki (Repository as Wiki). It's quite annoying.

xbryanx 7y ago

I’m surprised at this. The latest cloud editing experience in Confluence (Cloud) is pretty great in my opinion.

jasonsync 7y ago

Yes, was looking for this post. I rarely used the markup in the previous editor, but the new editor is so buggy I keep looking for an icon to switch to markup.

Aaronstotle 7y ago

Confluence/Jira is the worst product suite I've ever had the misfortune of using, I can't fathom how it became popular or who finds it useful.

mdaniel 7y ago
Elsewhere in this thread is the HIPPO acronym, and that's how one ends up with Jira/Confluence: "no one got fired for buying it" combined with "pointy haired bosses love it" It's been my overwhelming experience that managers love the _idea_ of Jira, but then the day-to-day in the trenches experience of battling its workflow, its markup, its ... everything ... gets pushed down onto busy people, and even if enough engineers revolt, now you have a "well, we're already so committed to Jira we can't leave now" style reply (again, in my experience)