User Guide - Server/DC
Support for Atlassian Server Products is ending in February 2024. Consider migrating to Source Editor for Confluence’s Data Center version.
Or, are you planning to migrate to Cloud? Make sure you do not lose your data/configurations in the process. Check out the Migration guide for information on how to migrate the app’s data to Cloud. Contact our support team if you have any questions.
This guide walks you through how to work with our Source Editor for the Confluence app.
Accessing the source editor
To open the source editor, click the button conveniently located in the top-right corner of any editable page. You can access the source editor when editing pages, blog posts, and even comments.
You must be logged in and have editing privileges to edit the Confluence page source.
Editing Confluence Source
The source editor provides direct access to the Confluence page source. Confluence pages are stored in an XML-based format called Confluence Storage Format.
Compatibility with Confluence Source Editor:
It is recommended to disable or uninstall the native Confluence Source Editor app (if you are using it along with this app) to avoid performance issues.
Code Editing
The Source Editor for Confluence is designed to be lightweight but contains a set of features that allows easy and intuitive editing of a Confluence page source.
Every feature in the above image is marked with a number to help you identify it. The following table describes the features:
Number | Editing feature | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Automatic indentation and syntax highlighting | Automatic indentation and syntax highlighting are available and enabled |
1 | Beautify | Click this button to make your code more readable. |
2 | Wrap text | Click this button to wrap the long code into the next line. |
3 | Find/Replace | Click this button to easily search for and replace code in the editor or use the Regex button to allow a regex string input. |
4 | Help | This button allows you to quickly find the important links that you might want to access. |
5 | Code folding | Use the markers next to the line numbers to fold XHTML tags. |
6 | Lights off/on | Click this button to switch between the dark and light modes of the window. |
7 | Expand/Collapse | Click this button to minimize or maximize the source editor window. |
8 | Page preview | This section allows you to know which part of the code you are editing. |
9 | Save | Click this button to save the edits you have made. |
10 | Cancel | Click this button to not save the edits you have made. |
Find/Replace
The following features are available in the Find/Replace option:
Every feature in the above image is marked with a number to help you identify it. The following table describes the features:
Number | Parameter | Description |
|---|---|---|
1 | Match Case | Click this button to start a case-sensitive word search. |
2 | Match Whole Word | Click this button to start a search to find the exact match. This is not a case-sensitive search option. |
3 | Use Regular Expressions | Click this button to use regular expressions for the search. |
4 | Previous match | Click the up arrow button to highlight the previous match. |
5 | Next match | Click the down arrow button to highlight the next identified match. |
6 | Find in selection | Click this button to highlight all identified matches. |
7 | Close | Click this button to close the Find/Replace window. |
8 | Preserve Case | Click this button to replace the identified word with the same case as that of the searched text. |
9 | Replace | Click this button to go over each word and replace it. |
10 | Replace All | Click this button to replace all identified words at a time. |
11 | Find | Enter the text you want to search. |
12 | Replace | Enter the text you want to replace with. |
Source Validation
To save any edits made to a Confluence page, the XHTML source must be valid. To confirm the validity of your source, simply click Submit and the editor will perform the verification. If your source is valid, the page will be saved. If your source contains an error, a message will be displayed indicating the nature of the error and the location in the code where it was discovered.