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.
You can use Comala Publishing to
copy your current production space pages to a new space to use as a development or draft space and then
publish and sync the new development space pages to the original production space
The development space can be used to draft, edit, update and check your page content before publishing to the production space.
Comala Publishing can be used to publish all the pages in one space (a source space) to another space (the target space) in the same Confluence site.
Permissions
Before you can undertake any publishing, you will require space administrator permission to configure publishing 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Any page in the source space that has page-level permissions will not be published in a whole space publishing action if the space administrator does not have view permission for these pages.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 pages are 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 target space page version.
Create a development space
This new space will be used later as the source space for the pages currently in your existing space.
create a new Confluence 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.
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 target space is confirmed on screen.
The publishing dashboard is updated with space publishing (Enable publishing option slider) and the single-page publishing (Enable single page publishing option slider) both enabled by default 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.
Space homepage
Comala Publishing cannot publish the space home page (Overview page).
The homepage content is static in each space - you must manually add any content as the page is not published.
If you want manage the original production space homepage content using publishing you will need to
create/copy the production space homepage as a child of the new development space homepage
review your space hierarchy
check the copied page in-page links and dynamic content macros such as children; page tree; content by label
This should be done before the initial publish action from the new development space.
You can make both the source space homepage and the target space homepage content dynamic by adding Confluence page macros such as Page tree, Children or Content by label macros to each space homepage.
You must ensure you have an appropriate homepage defined in the published space page hierarchy prior to publishing any content from the new development (DEV) space to the production (PROD) space. Changing a homepage (in either the source or target space) after the initial space publishing action may result in pages to be published to the root of the published space.
Set up the new development space
Comala Publishing is designed to publish content from a source space to an “empty” target space. Although a space with existing pages can be configured as a target space, if you set a target space that has some existing title pages that are the same as in the source space, this can cause publishing issues.
In this example, after copying your current production space to your new development space, you need to delete the content (except for the space homepage) in your existing production space before publishing from the new source 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 using 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
The backward publishing of pages from the production source space to the development space updates the spacekey used in the page URL to the production spacekey.
this is a new page in the PROD space and will have a new contentID
This will NOT be the same as the original page contentID copied from the production space.
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.
In-page hyperlinks
In-page links to another page in the source space will be updated on publishing.
Comala Publishing updates/modifies the space and contentID values within the page URL.
For example
adding a hyperlink in a page in the source DEV space
When published to the target PROD space
the link will be updated to link to the published page in the target space
Hyperlinks in a page that link to other pages in the source space, must include the page name in the source page link URL together with the page contentID.
a URL that contains only the page ID may not be updated; they may work in your source space but on publishing to the target space, the link will not be fully updated. A user choosing the link in the published target space will be directed to the source space page
If you add a link to a page in another space in your Confluence site this will be treated as an absolute URL when publishing. It will not change on publishing the page to the target space.
If you link to a page that is in another space in the site that is separately configured for publishing using Comala Publishing, ensure that you link to the published target space page and not the source draft space page to avoid directing users to the source draft page.
Links to in-page headings or anchors in another
In-page hyperlinks to headings/anchors in another source space page (except those created using macros such as the children or page tree macros) are not updated to the target space when a page is published. In the published target space page the link will redirect you to your source space page.
When using page macros to add dynamic content source space content, for example the content by label macros, set a filter in the macro to use current space. On publishing the page the macro will display content in the target space.
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 - however in some cases the order in the hierarchy is 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.
Publish using a Comala workflow
You can automate your publishing using Comala Publishing with a Comala Document Management workflow applied to the source space pages.
You can publish content on a transition to the workflow final state or configure a workflow trigger to publish a page on a different workflow event.