Release Notes 1.4-DR6
Confluence 1.4-DR6
Confluence 1.4-DR6 is the next development release in the cycle leading up to Confluence 1.4. In 1.4-DR6 we:
- introduce page-level view permissions,
- make Confluence radically more themeable,
- further improved the overall user interface and usability,
- add several interesting new plugin types,
- add file attachments to blog posts and user profile pages,
- let you customize Confluence logos at a space and global level, and
- help you keep track of all the email watches you might have set up in Confluence.
Phew! Got all that?
Who should upgrade?
Development releases are snapshots of the ongoing Confluence development process. We make them available for customers who are willing to risk an unpolished release in order to have early access to new features.
If you want to be running the most stable and most reliable version of Confluence, you should stick with the official, numbered releases.
Note for Oracle Users
Confluence 1.4-DR6 is currently not recommended for Oracle users, as it has not passed our test-suite against the Oracle database. This will (obviously) be fixed before we release Confluence 1.4.
Upgrade Procedure
Upgrading Confluence should be pretty easy. If you are upgrading from Confluence 1.3 or higher, you can find instructions here. We strongly recommend that you backup your confluence.home directory and database before upgrading!
If you are upgrading from Confluence 1.2.3 or earlier, be sure to read the upgrade instructions in the Confluence 1.3 release notes.
If you upgrade to Confluence 1.4-DR6 you will need to rebuild your search indexes before search will function correctly. Look for "Rebuild Search Index" on the global Administration page.
Downloads
All development releases are available from Development Releases on the Atlassian website.
New Features in Confluence 1.4-DR6
See also: Issues Resolved for 1.4-DR6
Page Level Permissioning
A highly-requested feature, and the reason this DR took so long to get out, you can now hide pages from other users. The option for hiding pages can be found at the bottom of the page's "Edit" screen.
- You can hide a page so it is only visible to yourself, or only visible to members of groups you belong to.
- Once a page is hidden, all its child pages (and their children, and so on) are also hidden.
- A new space-level permission has been introduced to determine which users are permitted to hide pages.
Please note that it may be possible for users to learn the names of hidden pages, even if they can't see their content. So don't make a page called "We Hate Bob Smith" if Bob Smith has access to your wiki. Just make a page called "We hate..." and put Bob's name in the body. 
Improved Themes
While the overwhelming reaction to the User Interface changes we have made in the 1.4-DR series has been positive, it has sparked continuing discussions on the user mailing list about various aspects of the presentation of a Confluence site. From these discussions we have determined:
- Everyone wants something slightly different.
- Some people want something completely different.
In response, we've moved to vastly improve the level of themeability that Confluence offers. Almost all of the user interface elements have been pushed into customizable decorators, so if you don't like the tabs, you will be able to install a theme that removes them entirely! We're hoping to bring out some example themes with the 1.4 release that do just this, but for now you can read the documentation for the new decorators in the Theme Module documentation.
Plugin Improvements
To make Confluence more flexible, we're introducing more ways for advanced users to extend the system:
Uploadable Plugins
Confluence administrators can now upload new plugins through the administrative interface, and have them installed without restarting the server.
Search Extractor Plugins
Extractor plugins allow you to add custom information to Confluence's full-text index when Confluence content is saved or updated. The most obvious application for this plugin type is to allow you to index attachment formats that Confluence does not yet support, but more creative plugin authors might make use of this as a sneaky way to store and retrieve metadata about any content in the Confluence system. Documentation for Extractor plugins is coming soon.
XWork Plugins
XWork plugins allow you to add new XWork (Webwork 2) actions to Confluence. Advanced programmers can add entirely new behaviors to the application: take a look at the examples in XWork-WebWork Module, in which we've implemented a rudimentary "Google Suggest"-like live search entry box for Confluence:
Servlet Plugins
Servlet plugins allow you to deploy servlets into Confluence dynamically – perfect for integrating Confluence with some legacy application that is only available as a servlet. See Servlet Module for an example.
Attachments for Blog Posts and User Profiles
You can now upload attachments to blog posts and user profiles, both frequently requested features. Users have the option to nominate one picture attached to their profile as their "profile picture", but we haven't quite decided what to do with this information yet.
There is a new global permission to determine if users can attach files to their profile. This permission is not assigned by default, so you will need to explicitly give it to users if you want to enable this feature.
Customizing Logos at a Space and Global Level
Space and global administrators may now easily configure the image displayed as the Confluence logo. This can be done for each space, or at a global level, without having to actually edit a single file.
Keeping track of your Email Watches
A Notifications link on your profile displays a list of all currently configured email watches you might have set up on various spaces or pages. You can now delete them in one, central, place or simply visit them.
Bug fixes
All bugs fixes made between Confluence 1.3.2 and Confluence 1.3.5 have been merged into the developer release branch, fixing many annoying bugs including the crash on selecting "Next" in search results. See also: Issues Resolved for 1.3.4, Issues Resolved for 1.3.5.