Builder 1.4 - Comming Soon...

Just a quick note to let you know we're still busy working on the Builder 1.4 Confluence Theme which will be compatible with the latest [archive:Confluence] 2.1.1 and for the first time available for hosting on external sites!

We've had a large number of enquiries regarding the theme since we first released it for use with our hosted clients' accounts. If you don't know what the Builder Theme is, you are looking at it right now!

The Builder Theme allows [archive:Confluence] to be used to create professional looking websites and intranets by changing the page layout slightly, adding a customisable menu and footer bar to your content and enabling a far higher level of customisation of page elements such as headings and colours, etc.

The release of the theme has been delayed a little bit because we've been working on our "Confluence Farm Manager" - currently an internal tool which enables us to more swiftly manage our ever-growing hosting service (more news on this at a later date).

We now have a full set of beta testers for the Builder Theme v1.4 and will be contacting them individually when the testing commences. In addition, any of our hosted clients will be able to upgrade their account to the latest Confluence (v2.1.1) and the Builder Theme v1.4.

There are some known issues with Builder Theme v1.4 that may affect some existing/prospective clients should they use it:

• It requires Confluence 2.1.1 - due to the changes in the user management introduced in v2.1.1 (and Builder's reliance on that aspect of Confluence), we decided to skip v2.0.x and focus on the latest version of the software.
• Labels are not shown when viewing a page (due to popular demand from existing clients) - to view and edit labels for a page, you must edit the page. We hope to have an option as to whether or not to show labels when viewing a page later in the year when Builder 2.0 is released.
• The theme will initially not support the "labels heat map" (accessed from the tab within "Browse Space" on the default Confluence theme). We hope to add support for this by version 1.5.
• The visual (WYSIWYG) editor does not work in Firefox when using the Builder theme - we hope to have this fixed by version 1.5 (or sooner if one of our beta testers can find what's causing the bug). However, the visual editor does work in Internet Explorer.

As soon as Builder 1.4 is released, we are going to start work on version 1.5 - essentially adding support for the label "heat map" and fixing the visual editor bug in Firefox.

It should also be noted that, as with the current version, the Builder Theme only allows customisation of the space-level pages. Have a look around our website to get a feel for what is themed and what is not. We intend to add support for global pages in Builder version 2.0 (so you can set it as the site theme and/or a space theme).