Last updated Oct 7, 2021

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Instruction text in blueprints

Including instructional text in blueprints

Blueprints (and other add-ons) can make use of the new instructional text feature for templates. The purpose of instructional text is to:

  • Make it easy for a template creator to include information on how to fill out the template.
  • Make it easy for the template end users to fill out a template.  This is done using the following features:
    • Automatically clear all instructional text as a user types in a specific text block.
    • Automatically trigger a @mention prompt for user selection.
    • Automatically trigger the Jira Issues macro dialog to let a user search for or create an issue.

You can insert instructional text into a blueprint or template using the <ac:placeholder>instruction text</ac:placeholder> notation in the storage format.

There is also an optional ac:type attribute that specifies the type of instructional text that the placeholder represents. Confluence provides support for the following types: 

  • mention  – activates the user search autocomplete to insert a user mention into the page. 
  • jira – launches the Jira Issues macro dialog and lets a user to search for or create an issue. 

Here is a sample storage format for an instructional text:

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<ul>
    <li><ac:placeholder>This is an example of instruction text that will get replaced when a user selects the text and begins typing.</ac:placeholder></li>
    <li><ac:placeholder ac:type="jira">This placeholder will launch the Jira Issues macro dialog when clicked</ac:placeholder></li>
</ul>
<ac:task-list>
    <ac:task>
        <ac:task-status>incomplete</ac:task-status>
        <ac:task-body><ac:placeholder ac:type="mention">@mention example. This placeholder will automatically search for a user to mention in the page when the user begins typing.</ac:placeholder></ac:task-body>
    </ac:task>
</ac:task-list>

Adding instruction text types

It is possible to add support for additional types of instructional text via a plugin. To do this, add a tinymce plugin inside your plugin as follows.

Add a new JavaScript file to extend the editor

The following code sample is a skeleton file to add support for another type of instructional text.

editor_plugin_src.js

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(function($) {
    tinymce.create('tinymce.plugins.InstructionalTextExample', {
        init : function(ed) {
            // This adds support for this type of instructional text into the template editor
            if(AJS.Rte.Placeholder && AJS.Rte.Placeholder.addPlaceholderType) {
                AJS.Rte.Placeholder.addPlaceholderType({
                    type: 'example',
                    label: AJS.I18n.getText("property.panel.textplaceholder.display.example"),
                    tooltip: AJS.I18n.getText("property.panel.textplaceholder.display.example.tooltip"),
                    // The following defines how the placeholder can be activated. It is optional, and if omitted will have the following default values
                    activation: {
                        click: false,
                        keypress: true
                    }
                });
            }
            // This adds support to responding to this instruction text being replaced in the editor
            AJS.bind('editor.text-placeholder.activated', function(e, data) {
                if(data && data.placeholderType === "example") {
                    // do something special here for this type of instruction text
                }
            });
        },
        getInfo : function() {
            return {
                longname : 'Instructional Text Type Example',
                author : 'Atlassian',
                authorurl : 'http://www.atlassian.com',
                version : tinymce.majorVersion + "." + tinymce.minorVersion
            };
        }
    });
    tinymce.PluginManager.add('instructionaltextexample', tinymce.plugins.InstructionalTextExample);
})(AJS.$);


AJS.Rte.BootstrapManager.addTinyMcePluginInit(function(settings) {
    settings.plugins += ",instructionaltextexample";
});

Here is an example of web-resource and i18n resource for atlassian-plugin.xml file:

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<resource type="i18n" name="i18n" location="instructional-text-example" />

<web-resource key="editor-example-instructional-text-resources" name="Example Instruction Text Resources">
    <description>Example Instruction Text Resources</description>
    <transformation extension="js">
        <transformer key="jsI18n"/>
    </transformation>
    <resource name="tinyMce-plugins-example-instructional-text.js" type="download" location="js/editor_plugin_src.js"/>
    <context>editor</context>
    <dependency>com.atlassian.auiplugin:ajs</dependency>
</web-resource>

Here is an example of i18n properties in instructional-text-example.properties:

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property.panel.textplaceholder.display.example=Example Instructional Text Type
property.panel.textplaceholder.display.example.tooltip=This is only example

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