Creating a new development space from an existing production space
If you already have a space for content, your production space, you can easily and safely create a development environment for it using Comala Publishing.
Permissions
Before you can undertake any publishing, you will require space administrator permission to configure and action a whole space publishing action.
You will also require view and edit permissions in the two spaces to publish pages from a source space to a target space.
Any page in the source space that has page-level permissions will not be published in a whole space publishing action if the space administrator does not have view permission for these pages. They will be effectively hidden from Comala Publishing and will not be included in the space publishing report in the publishing dashboard.
Page history
Comala Publishing publishes pages from a source space to a target space in the same Confluence site. The publishing action creates a new page version in the target space.
If you need to retain the page history, for example for audit, you will need to create a backup of the current production space/export a copy of the production space prior to publishing pages from the new development space.
After the initial publishing of a page, each subsequent publishing action increments the published page version in a target space.
Create a development space
create a new Confluence space, which will be later used as the source space for the pages currently in your existing space
this will be your development (DEV) space for creating and editing your draft pages
Once the development (DEV) space is created you will need to populate this new space with the existing content from your current space - the production (PROD) space.
Comala Publishing cannot publish the space home page (Overview page). The homepage content is static in each space - you must manually add content to the homepage. To add dynamic content add page macros such as Page tree or Children to the home page in each space to display the pages in each space.
Copying the production space pages to the development space
In the production (PROD) space
navigate to the Comala publishing dashboard by heading to Space Settings > Manage pages > Publishing
add your your newly created development (DEV) space as the target space
You’ll be using your current production environment temporarily as a source space for publishing.
choose Change to confirm target space
The target space change/added is confirmed on screen.
The publishing dashboard is updated with space publishing and single-page publishing enabled for the space.
choose Publish space to copy the space pages to the new development space
Check the publishing dashboard to confirm the entire content has been successfully published to the target space - the development (DEV) space.
Any pages not successfully copied are listed in the publishing dashboard.
Comala Publishing copies pages - blog posts and archived pages are not published. In addition some page content is not published, for example, inline comments and page permissions. You may need to undertake some manual updates on these source space pages.
If publishing is successful then your pages will be copied to the PROD space
the pages in each space will be appended with the SYNCED publishing status lozenge
Confluence version and page history is not copied. The first time pages are published to a target space the target space page is set as version one.
disable publishing by moving Enable publishing green tick slider in the production (PROD) space publishing dashboard to unlink the two spaces
You can now go to the space settings publishing dashboard in the development (DEV) space to set up publishing from the DEV space to the original production (PROD) space.
Set up the new development space
In the development (DEV) space
navigate to the Comala publishing dashboard in the DEV space by heading to Space Settings > Manage pages > Publishing
add your your original production (PROD) space as the target space
choose Publish space to copy the space pages to the production space
You need to first initiate a space publish operation before you can use the single-page publishing option.
Page URLs and page contentIDs
An important aspect is that during the publishing action from the new source space to a target space all the page contentID's in this production space will be updated (changed).
Original page URL in the production space
/wiki/spaces/PROD/pages/2438561796/Product+Team+Ethos
Published page URL in the development space
/wiki/spaces/DEV/pages/2438693479/Product+Team+Ethos
Published page URL in the production space with new contentID
/wiki/spaces/PROD/pages/2438823986/Product+Team+Ethos
Any external resources that rely on these page ID's will need to be updated such as short link urls, in-app urls, or links from external sites.
Confluence URLs may only be resolved and updated ONLY if you include the page name in the URLs along with the page contentID.
URLs that contain only the page ID in them won't be updated; they may work in your source space but on publishing to the target space, the link will not be fully updated. Users choosing the link in the target space will be directed to the source space page.
Internal page links
Any in-page links internal to the space will be updated on publishing
For example
adding a hyperlink in a page in the source DEV space
When published to the target DEV space
the link will be updated to link to the published page in the target space
If you add an in-page link to another space page in your Confluence site that is configured for Comala Publishing, ensure that you link to the published target space page and not the source draft space page. In this use-case the source space url link will be not updated on publishing. The link will be treated as an absolute.
Deleting pages after publishing
Deleting a page that has been published will have different effects depending on whether the page to be removed is in the source space or the target space. Archiving a page in either space has a different impact to deleting a page - if a page is archived in either space this prevents any further publishing action for the page. Deleting a page in the source space if you delete a page on the source space, you will need to manually delete the page in the target space as well If you only delete the page in the source space, the page will remain in the target space, even after a space publish action. Deleting a page in the target space if you delete a page in the target space, the source space page will be set with a publishing status of NEW if this page is no longer required you will need to manually delete the page in the source space as well Publishing the source page again will create a new page as version one in the target space with a new contentID. Instead of deleting a page you may have decided to archive the page. Archiving a page in the target space if you archive a page in the target space, the source space page cannot be published again until the page is unarchived or deleted publishing byline status remains on the target space page the archive action does not change the publishing status editing the target space page will update the publishing and sync status The source page retains the link to the archived target space published page. Archiving a page in the source space if you archive a page in the source space, the source space page cannot be published again until the page is unarchived editing the source space page will update the publishing and sync status The target space page retains the link to the archived source space page.
Publishing a child page without a parent
If you publish a child page and the parent page is not present in the target space, the child page will be created and placed in the root directory of the target space. This is most likely to occur when using single-page publishing option as it only publishes the current page and the target space parent page no longer exists or has not yet been published. You may need to re-publish the parent page.
Hierarchy is maintained where possible when publishing - the order in the hierarchy is sometimes not maintained and my need to be manually changed in the target space.
Publishing to the root of the space may also occur when space publishing if the space home page in the target space is changed after the first space publishing action.
If changing the space home page in either the source or target space after the initial space publishing you may need to publish the whole space again to avoid pages being published to the root of the target space.