Updated news module and macro

This release updates the news module/macro, allowing you to optionally include the blog post likes while displaying blog posts.

Bug-fixes and improvements

• Fixed an issue where the news module could show a negative creation time depending on timezone differences.

Improved page tree performance

This release updates the APIs used for the page tree to increase the performance when the space has a huge amount of pages. This also deprecates the old API which will be removed in a future version:

/rest/refinedtheme/latest/space/{spaceKey}/pages

/rest/refinedtheme/latest/space/{spaceKey}/pagetree

Announcement banner bulk fetch

Introduced new REST endpoint for bulk-fetching announcement banners from multiple locations. Example: announcement/bulk?admin=true&container-ids=1&container-ids=2&container-type=site

Bug-fixes and improvements

• Fixed an issue where it was not possible to create new blogs posts through the Create button

Site Migration assistant

In this release, we’re introducing a Site migration assistant, allowing you to export your Refined sites, in order to then be able to import them on cloud.

For more information see our migration site: Refined for Confluence

Read our blog post here: https://www.refined.com/blog/easily-migrate-to-refined-cloud-with-our-migration-assistant

Export layouts to Cloud

Migrating to Cloud just got easier: you can now export your layouts and import them in a Refined Cloud instance.

For modules that differ between the platforms, you’ll be given a choice on how to proceed with some pre-filled recommended actions.

Learn more about Server/DC to Cloud migration

Renaming

We updated in-app copy to align with the documentation, our Cloud apps, and our Atlassian Marketplace listings:

• Category Menu → Navigation menu

• Refined for Jira → Refined for Jira Service Management

More flexible Search macro CQL configuration

You can now fully override or exclude the default and write a custom CQL filter in the Search macro. Simply toggle the “Include title and label search” box. This option is also available in Search modules on layouts.

Updated internal libraries

We’ve updated our internal libraries to ensure the latest security, improvement and bugfixes.

More Integrations - Refined for Jira integration

We’ve continued to build upon the multi application setup with Refined, bringing Refined for Confluence and Refined for Jira/JSM even more closer together.

You can now configure your integrations to also include personal user links in the user avatar menu, such as My Requests, Approvals or assigned Jira Issues. Read more about Integrations

Updated UI - User Menu

With the addition of the new Refined for Jira integrations in the user menu, these menus also received a small UI update to make them a bit clearer and more inline with the rest of the Refined design.

Cache Management UI update

The Cache management section of the Admin UI has gotten an updated look. Read more about the cache system: Performance tips

Additional features & improvements

Bug-fixes

• Images are now properly displayed in the Pages module again.

• Updated in-app links to the new help.refined.com Help Center.

Integrations - Refined for Jira integration

With this release we’re bringing Refined for Confluence and Refined for Jira/JSM closer together. You’ll now find an Integration section where you can configure and manage any of your Application links.

You’ll be able to include Sites from Refined for Jira directly into your site switcher, which has also seen a design upgrade. Read more about integrations.

Announcement banner updates

The announcement banners have been updated with a new type: Announcement. The admin UI to manage them has been updated as well.

Additional features & improvements

Bug-fixes

• Added a loader when going to the Imagebank admin UI.

• Updated deprecated Confluence ListBuilder<> usage.

• Fixed an issue where Single space sites wrongly showed the “select category dialog”

• Includes theme editor and theme gallery version info in debug information file that can be generated by the admin.

• Updated packages

  • org.json

  • org.jsoup

  • org.springframework:spring-context

Please read the upgrade instructions to learn how to install this new version.

Theme Editor 2.0

We've made major improvements in the Theme Editor. It loads faster, looks better, and will automatically “bring along” and update themes for future versions of Refined for Confluence. Read more on creating your own themes.

Introducing the Imagebank

You can now upload, organise, and store images in an Imagebank for quick and easy use across all portals and themes. Having one centralised location for your images makes it easy to manage them: you only need to upload images once and you can be sure that you are using the latest and approved content.

You can access the Imagebank in Theme Configuration > Images.

Import themes from Refined for Jira & JSM

The new Theme Editor allows you to import your Refined for Jira themes into Refined for Confluence, and vice versa. This makes it easier to align your theming across all platforms.

Removal of legacy libraries.

Refined for Confluence has been around since 2009! To ensure security and stability moving forward, we’ve migrated away from some old legacy libraries, and removed outdated material. You can find a detailed list of removed legacy items in the upgrade instructions.

We always recommend to upgrade your development or test instance first, to make sure that everything works as expected.

Older versions of Refined stored data using Bandana - serializing objects and storing it all in one special Atlassian-provided database table.

These have since moved over to the general/standard storage format using Active objects and regular database tables. To ensure security and stability moving forward we’ve removed some old deprecated entries that are no longer in use. The upgrade procedures above would handle it for you but for clarity these are the items that have been removed or otherwise migrated, meaning they will no longer be considered if present in the Bandana storage table.

• refinedwiki.originaltheme.categories

  • Old format for storing information regarding categories. Deprecated in Refined 4.2

• refinedwiki.originaltheme.categories.lastupdated

  • Used to keep track of changes to the old category data structure. For caching purposes.

• refinedwiki.originaltheme.designs.autocomplete

  • Deprecated/Unused setting related to Advanced themes.

• refinedwiki.originaltheme.settings.backup

  • Old general settings (General configuration) backup that used to be manually stored as a separate object.

• refinedwiki.originaltheme.blogs

  • Old format for storing information on the Blogs system and migration of blogs. Migration took place in Refined 5.0 and these were then deprecated.

• refinedwiki.originaltheme.links

  • Old format for storing links. Deprecated in Refined 4.2

• refinedwiki.originaltheme.footer

  • Old format for storing footer data (In markdown/Wikimarkup)

Please read the upgrade instructions to learn how to install this new version.

Introducing admin delegation

We're introducing Admin Delegation to allow Confluence Administrators to grant permissions for users or user groups to configure the Refined App. We're introducing two new admin levels: 

Refined Admin

Refined admins are allowed to configure and manage everything in Refined without being a Confluence Administrator

Site Admin

Site admins are allowed to administer a site within Refined. Note: users with this admin level are not allowed to configure or manage global Refined features.

Category Admins are still available and work as before. For a detailed description of the different admin levels and permissions see  Delegating admins. 

Introducing announcement banners

Highlight key information, post status updates or just remind the users about the upcoming kickoff! You can easily add announcement banners for any item (including spaces!) in your navigation structure. Announcement banners can be added globally, on a site level, on a category level or even on individual spaces. 

Read more about announcement banners

A fresh set of bundled themes

We've included a fresh set of bundled themes. New installations of Refined will have these bundled from the get-go! 

New create button placement

We have listened to your wishes and feedback and changed the create button placement to the top right corner.

Import and export of layouts

You can now import and export layouts of your site home and category home. Share layouts between sites or categories, or export a layout to use it as a template. 

In-App Advanced Theme-editor removed

In Refined for Confluence 6.1   we deprecated  the in-app advanced theme editor which has been completely removed in 7.0. You can instead use your favourite IDE to develop Advanced Themes. Learn more here:   Advanced Theming

Free consultation available on how to migrate an advanced theme to a regular theme

As our in built theme editor has significantly improved over the years, we believe that most advanced themes can be converted to a regular theme. Refined is currently offering free consultation on how to migrate an advanced theme to a regular, upgrade-safe theme.

Other fixes

We've also done a lot of other fixes in this release. 

• Copy modules in Layout editor - You can now copy modules in the Layout editor with a click of a button. 

• Two new modules available for layouts: Navigation Image & Navigation Cards

• Possibility to expand and collapse sites in the Site Builder

• Setting to disable the HTML module from site & category layouts and from content layout macro. 

We always recommend to upgrade your development or test instance first, to make sure that everything works as expected.