How can I add in an interactive drop down menu on a page?
Asked by Derek Magnuson:

How can I add in an interactive drop down menu on a page?


Answers:
author: Mario Coluzzi
body: These tools and functionalities should be native in Confluence and not forcing us to pay another licence just install an app for a single purpose aka "dropdown selection"

comments: author: S R
body: YES! You are completely right, Mario!  
What a waste of time to look for solutions for simple things like drop down lists!   
Not at all an argument in favor to Confluence...


author: Mario Coluzzi
body: Hi SR

Confluence is a good product compared with other products. Considering that more and more people are using Confluence to push corporate documentation, we should have available more edit tools deployed with Confluence.

Atlassian reads our comments and they act upon them.

Wanna bet they will deploy the dropdown soon?


author: Ste Wright
body: There is a suggestion for this; check out [CONFCLOUD-71449](https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/CONFCLOUD-71449)

Ste


author: Svetoslav Sotirov
body: Why there is no native control in confluence for a drop down that you can use in pages?


author: Stiltsoft Support
body: Hello [@Derek Magnuson](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/4035561)

You can create dropdown menus in Confluence with Handy Status. It's one of many macros included in our [Handy Macros for Confluence](https://marketplace.atlassian.com/apps/1214971/handy-macros-for-confluence-formatting-and-interactive-ui?tab=overview&hosting=cloud). With its help, you can create custom sets of statuses and switch them without editing the page.

![Screenshot 2022-02-16 at 23-22-24 Product Releases - Internship Server Month 2 - Confluence.png](https://community.atlassian.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/183867i57106AFA6C17CA49/image-size/large?v=v2&px=999 "Screenshot 2022-02-16 at 23-22-24 Product Releases - Internship Server Month 2 - Confluence.png")

Best regards,

Elena

comments: author: Elsa Navarro
body: How is this supposed to be helpful. if we work in a big company which for security reasons cant do a cloud version. is there any other option, that is included in the server/ data center solution?


author: Stiltsoft Support
body: Hi [@Elsa Navarro](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/5065655)

Sure, the same functionality is available in the [Data Center version](https://marketplace.atlassian.com/apps/1214971/handy-macros-for-confluence-formatting-and-interactive-ui?tab=overview&hosting=datacenter) of the app.


author: Ste Wright
body: Hi [@Derek Magnuson](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/4035561)

It depends what you mean by interactive drop-down menu - there's two options here:

* Lists on Templates
* Lists on Pages (i.e post-creation)

You haven't mentioned a hosting type so this is based on Cloud - although I'm pretty sure it's quite similar across Server/DC.

----------------

**Templates:**

You can add custom templates - like the ones offered during creation such as Blank Page or Blog Post. In templates, you can have an interactive list where you choose the options before the page creates, and then the options chosen form part of the data on that page.

To be clear, the drop-down is only available here during creation - not after.

To create a template like this you'll need to be a Space Admin and then:

1. Go to Space Settings \> Content Tools \> Templates
2. On the right-hand side, press the "Create Template" button
3. Type onto the page "/variable" - which will locate the variable macro
4. Once added to the page, click on the variable macro and press the pencil to edit
5. Give the variable a name (this doesn't appear on page post-creation)
6. Select List from the options, and enter your options for the drop-down as "Option 1, Option 2, Option 3"
7. Press Save
8. Finish creating the template and press the blue "Save" button in the top-right corner when complete

\^ When creating a page with this template the drop-down fields will be available to choose options for during creation.

----------------

**Pages:**

On pages themselves, having a drop-down field isn't possible natively. You could try an app - such as [Easy Dropdown](https://marketplace.atlassian.com/apps/1216797/easy-dropdown-menu-drop-down-selection?hosting=cloud&tab=overview) - or an alternative I've seen users try in the past is:

1. Edit a page - and select the macro "Expand" by typing /expand
2. Give it a title - then in the main body, create a checkbox using the shortcut "\[\]"
3. Add more checkboxes depending on how many options are in your list
4. Press the Publish button in the top-right corner

\^ This isn't a drop-down list, but it's an alternative option!

Ste

comments: author: MarQuita Scott
body: I've tried this a few times this hasn't worked for me. Is there something that I'm doing wrong?


author: imachin
body: The shortcut "\[\]" does not work. Also when I try to add a checkbox without shortcut it gets pushed out of the /expand macro.


author: Ste Wright
body: Hi [@imachin](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/4531021) , [@MarQuita Scott](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/4985353) ,

I tested this in Cloud and both worked fine.

Can you clarify whether you are on Server/DC or Cloud? What is happening when you try [@MarQuita Scott](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/4985353) ?

Ste


author: MarQuita Scott
body: I'm on the cloud.


author: Nicholas Savage
body: I've just tested on Confluence cloud and it works but *not* inside a table.


Tags: atl-gruland

new-to-confluence