Confluence 2.9 has been released, however some last minute changes to Confluence have resulted in some plugins breaking... Update: Added list of plugins that break
Most Atlassian Partners expected the release to be next week (Tuesday 12th), however Confluence 2.9 has been publicly released ahead of schedule.
There were numerous bugs in Confluence 2.9-RC1 which developers had been using to test their plugins. Unfortunately, the early release of Confluence 2.9.0 means that customers are getting the final release at the same time as developers - so there's no way that developers could update their plugins in advance of this release.
The following plugins are known to break on Confluence 2.9 (they are used on around 40% of all Confluence installs worldwide, if not more):
Scaffolding plugin (CustomWare) – several bugs reported- Linking plugin (CustomWare) – add-page macro breaks, possibly others too
Theme Builder (Adaptavist) – Use v3.2.1 or above
Replace and Render (Adaptavist) – Low priority plugin, fix not yet scheduled- Approvals Workflow Plugin (ComalaTech) – Use latest version
- Gliffy Plugin (Gliffy Inc.) – Use latest version
We're also getting reports that the plugin repository, originally developed by Adaptavist but now maintained by Atlassian, is broken in Confluence 2.9.0. This bug appears to be caused by the Scaffolding Plugin (not confirmed yet).
While many of the commercial plugins are likely to be fixed within the next few days, it's highly unlikely that open source plugins will be fixed any time soon. Open source developers are struggling to keep up with the constantly changing API within Confluence - there's only so much work they can do for free, so please be patient with them.
Many customers are also upgrading to Java 1.5 (a requirement of Confluence 2.9) and finding that the "Compatibility Macros" plugin is automatically re-enabled thus breaking the table macro which is often used in Theme Builder layouts. If your tables are messed up, disable the "Compatibility Macros" plugin (or at least the rogue table macro in that plugin).
We'll continue to update this news item as more information comes in.
Added by
Updated by Per Fragemann
Aug 18, 2008 05:39
Hi Guy,
it is sad to hear that you encountered problems. I would like to apologize for the confusion around release date vs announcement date. The announcement happened a week after the release to give our new marketing department some time to adjust. In the future we will get the announcement out in the same week as the actual release.
However, I would like to stress that we tried prettty hard to make everyone aware of all the changes early on. We did some major changes and refactorings in the first two months of the 2.9 release cycle, but it is not like we have kept those secret. We have released several public milestone releases during the release cycle which plugin developers could use to test the plugins. We also clearly stated on the 9/July that the majority of the work for 2.9 had been done, and on the 31/July that the final release was imminent.
The main point you raise in this warning is that there were unexpected last minute changes which broke plugins, and that RC1 had numerous bugs. Can you give us some more information on this issue? As far I as know, except for a few isolated bugfixes RC1 and 2.9.0 didn't have any changes at all. We hid the author-field in search for LDAP instances, fixed some menus not working with IE, fixed page history being too restricted, and a bug that affected some plugins which was introduced in early June,and which we fixed as soon as it was reported. I am not aware of any issues which could be qualified as "last minute changes", especially changes that would have the potential to break anything. Can you give me some more details?
If there are issues in our release process, we are the first ones who want to improve it and iron out remaining problems. Any help is appreciated. While we tried to raise awareness for our milestones and the importance of using at leas the later ones, maybe we still need to allow more time to pass between the initial release candidate and the final release?
BTW, we are working on a improved plugin subsystem which should ease the pains of plugin development a lot. We are currently pioneering its use by converting the plugin repository (one of the more advanced plugins) to the new API, and will keep you informed about our progress during the announcements of our upcoming Confluence 2.10 milestone releases.
Cheers,
Per
Team Lead Confluence Development
I can be pretty confident that there were several changes between RC1 and 2.9.0, since the plugin loader was utterly roasted in RC1 ... changes to both java and velocity were not getting picked up unless the version number changed.
More information can be found in the following issues: CSP-21759, CSP-21198, PLUG-73, CONF-12376
Most plugins are now compatible with Confluence 2.9, however we strongly recommend testing upgrades on a staging environment prior to updating your live environment.
As for the Scaffolding Plugin, developed by CustomWare, version 3.0.x will be compatible with Confluence 2.8 and version 3.1.x will be compatible with Confluence 2.9 - hopefully by the end of this month. For more information on Scaffold Plugin, please contact CustomWare directly.
@Per - Are you at AtlasCamp in a couple of months? If so, myself and the team would like to discuss the issues faced by plugin developers (not just us, all of them) due to the constant API changes in Confluence.
I am not sure if I will attend, but we can get on the phone right next week if you would like to. I will contact you by mail.