How many clicks to change a Status Macro in Confluence?
I have always been a fan of the Confluence status macro. I’m a visual person and our beloved
But, like with everything beautiful, there is a catch. The status macro is a living creature, it needs to change when – well – the status of this or that changes. And here I’m calling out the elephant in the room: it’s extremely cumbersome to change the status macro since Confluence introduced the status macro in 2004 (correct me if I’m wrong).
- “Click” : Edit page
- “Click” : click on status macro to edit
- “Click” : click on input field with “TODO”
- “Click-click”: to select “TODO”
- “Key” : ◀️ DELETE
- “Key” : “I”
- “Key” : “N”
- “Key” : SPACE
- “Key” : “P”
- “Key” : “R”
- “Key” : “O”
- “Key” : “G”
- “Key” : “R”
- “Key” : “E”
- “Key” : “S”
- “Key” : “S”
- “Click” : 🟦 – blue color selector
- “Key” : ↩️ ENTER
- “Click” : Publish page
Wow – are you still reading this?
So long story short, to change ONE, yes a single one status macro from todo to in progress you need 7 clicks and 13 keystrokes. You don’t realize until you count them.
Let’s imagine you have a project tracking page with 10 tasks with frequent status updates. No! Honestly, I refuse to calculate the clicks and keystrokes involved day after day, it’s boring and depressing.
So what’s the lazy content wrangler in me thinking? This is a simple {“key”:”value”} pair problem, nothing more, nothing less.
Everyone has seen these happy two-colored pills 💊 that contain horrible meds, or worse? And what if we just render them as “key” and “value” pairs, as “category” and “value” pills?
Meet “Advanced Content Status & Labels for Confluence”
We did start with a working title of “Awesome Pills for Confluence” and I like it a lot, but our Head of Marketing & Sales wouldn’t have it. OK then, let’s go with an important sounding name that people can actually find via search: “Advanced Content Status & Labels for Confluence”.
With this little awesome macro changing a status or literally any Key:Value combo takes
TWO CLICKS
Don’t edit the page!
- “Click” on the “down” chevron
2. “Click” on “In progress”
Don’t need to publish the page!
THAT’S IT. TWO CLICKS
Now you say, that’s all very well, but not everyone wants to use this set of statuses or would want to use a completely different category.
With this nifty new macro you can create any category:[valueset] on the fly while you’re typing away. And the best thing is, everyone else can re-use your creations in any content!
You can find Advanced Status Labels for Confluence on the Atlassian Marketplace here
We would love to hear your thoughts and feedback either in the comments below or get in touch with our support channel here!
Until next time,
Sean & Ulrich from the Izymes Team
