Well, Confluence 2.3 is released and we've been busy testing various plugins for compatibility.

Most plugins will work fine, however there have been several changes to the API's (Application Programmer Interfaces) used in Confluence due to the new clustering functionality that's been added to the product.

At present, the Builder plugin won't work on Confluence 2.3 but we're hoping to have a patch released in the next few days to solve that. The patch will provide the current Builder functionality on Confluence 2.3 but won't initially support clustering.

Builder 2.1 is under development which, as well as adding some awesome new features (eg. ability to apply themes to multiple spaces and some awesome performance improvements), is expected to support clustering in Confluence (the theme configurations will need to be stored in the database rather than on disk).

Stay tuned to our newsroom for further updates.

Patterns Library

For those of you interested in Patterns (tried and tested ways of doing things), we've recently started a new [Patterns Library].

It's still in early stages and currently only contains a couple of sections, but we're keen to hear your feedback as to whether it's useful or not

Builder 2.0.3 Released

Builder 2.0.3 has been released which now adds Confluence 2.3 compatibility. If using Confluence 2.3 you will also need to upgrade to the latest Page Information Tools plugin due to changes in the Confluence APIs.

Please note that Builder does not currently support clustered Confluence (Massive) installations - this will be added in a future release.

Builder Roadmap

Builder 2.1 is currently under development which introduces hierarchical theme configurations.

This feature allows one theme configuration to inherit from another so, for example, you can define a central "look and feel" and then have space-specific themes based on that central look and feel but with changes to navigation or design, etc.

We are also planning to improve performance of the menus by creating a new compound macro which incorporates the menuitem, menuicon and menulink macros. This will reduce the number of rendered macros by two thirds and hopefully boost menu performance noticably.

Builder 2.2 specifications are becoming more formalised with plans to:

• Provide XML-based menu configuration with a visual editing tool - this will simplify menu creation and hopefully lead to a huge increase in performance when rendering menus
• Provide visual editing tools for defining text and heading styles

As always, we develop Builder based primarily on what our clients ask for - if you have feature requests or ideas, please get in touch and let us know

Bach-Académie de Montréal 2007

Shortly after Adaptavist was founded, we gained our first client - Bach-Académie de Montréal (Canada). Back in those days we were using Confluence v1.4.1 and Builder theme v1.3.

Bach-Académie de Montréal were not only our first client (first [archive:Confluence] license we delivered, first [archive:Builder] theme, first [archive:Host] client, first [archive:Bespoke Solutions] client), they were the first of many clients to use Confluence specifically as a website and not a wiki.

The site sent shock-waves through the Confluence community because it nobody even realised it was a wiki! All people saw was a stylish website, thanks to the Builder theme radically altering the way things look.

At the time nobody was sure whether the festival would be a one-time event or whether it would be repeated. Luckily, the 2005 festival was a great success and gained worldwide media coverage - as a result, it was decided to hold the festival every two years.

The Bach-Académie now has a world famous conductor on its Board of Directors
so it's likely that the 2007 event will reach an even greater audience!

This week, some 22 Confluence versions later, the site has just started to undergo rennovation for the 2007 festival.

The old content has been hastily hidden away (it will return later in an Archives space) and the first bits and pieces are being added to the new 2007 spaces, English language first and then the Français version will follow.

Using the latest Confluence v2.3, Builder v2.0.3 and our latest hosting facility, it became apparent just how much work has been done over the past few years - everything feels more "solid" and development has been faster and easier than ever.

Our client used an external ISP to host their domain name, and that ISP has suffered a major crash so it's possible that you won't be able to get through to their site. In the interim, use http://bam.wiki-neon.adaptavist.com

We are going to develop the site live - if you want to see how it evolves over the coming months, head over to Bach-Académie de Montréal occasionally to see how we're progressing. It's likely to be ad-hoc development as events are confirmed and designs approved and should give some insight in to the evolution of a site from the minimalistic basics (and likely quite a few bugs and spelling mistakes, etc) through to it's final form.