forum macro

Overview

The forum macro provides a very simple way to add any number of forums to a wiki space. Simply place it on a page and all child pages will be treated as topics in the forum.

The order of items shown is based on the most recent activity in the child pages - new pages and pages with new comments appear at the top of the list.

Because topics in the forum are normal wiki pages with their normal comments, all the usual Confluence features still apply:

If you're watching pages or the space, you'll get email notifications when changes are made
You can add pages to your favourites to quickly "bookmark" interesting forum topics
Page level permissions can be set and all the usual Space Permissions apply
You can turn any existing collections of pages in to forums simply by adding the forum macro to the parent page

Usage

{forum}

Parameters

Parameter	Default	Notes	Bubbles Version
default	@self	The page that is the root of the forum: title - the title of a page that exists within the space @self - the current page (default)	1.0
page	@self	An alternate way of specifying the page name	1.0
space	current space	If you want to display forum topics from a different space, specify the space key with this parameter.	1.0
recurse	false	Show all descendant pages as topics	1.0
excerpt	comment	Controls if the excerpt from the latest comment or the original topic page is displayed. comment - Show the excerpt from the latest comment topic - Show the excerpt from the original topic page always	1.0
showPics	true	Whether to show the user's profile pictures or not: true - Show profile pictures false - Don't show pictures	1.0
none		The text to display if there are no topics in the forum.	1.0
count	show all topics	The maximum number of recent posts that should be shown, eg. 10	1.0
display	simple	The layout to use for the forum (examples): simple - A clean-looking simple layout clean - A simple-looking clean layout table - A more conventional table layout	1.0
reverse	false	Change the display order to show the oldest posts first.	1.0

Hints and Tips

Topic Reply Notifications

If you've installed the open source AutoWatch Plugin, you can automatically add page watches for users who add new topics or comment on existing topics - this is particularly useful as people often want to get notified when someone replies to their topic or comment.

Selective Recent Updates Lists

You can use the forum macro to display recently updated content for a specific section of a space - for example, if you have a page called "Meetings" which has numerous child pages (eg. a page for each individual meeting) you could do something like this:

h3. Recent Meetings

{forum:page=Meetings|recurse=true}
{add-topic:page=Meetings|restrict=false}Add new meeting...{add-topic}

The forum macro will then list all the recent changes to the page hierarchy attached to the "Meetings" page.

Forum Widget

Use the forum macro inside a widget to display a small number of the most recent posts on another page. See Forum Widget Example

Topic Edit Restrictions

You can automatically restrict editing of new topics to the person who creates the topic (other users can still comment on the topic) by using the add-topic macro.