Possible bug: soft link changes when moving page (to another space)
Asked by Stephen Kairys:

Hi,

**Using Confluence Server 5.9.7:**

My client's installation has two spaces. Call them (redacted) VENDOR and STEVE..

The VENDOR space includes the following docs (e.g.)

**Vendor Onboarding**   
**Vendor Setup**

**Vendor Onboarding** contains a soft link to an anchor within **Vendor Setup**.

Last night, I renamed **Vendor Setup**, and moved to the STEVE space, prior to moving a new live copy of the doc from STEVE.

When I tested the soft link to Vendor Setup, it linked me to the MOVED document, now in the ARCHIVE space. *It seems Confluence updated that soft link automatically to point to the moved doc in the VENDOR space.*

IMO, the above behavior represents a useful feature gone-to-far. While I believe soft links should be updated when you merely rename a page, they should NOT be updated when you move a page to another space. Had I not taken the time to test the link, users would have encountered difficulty when clicking on the link.

FWIW, It seems that when moving within the SAME space, the same behavior occurs. I guess I can live with that behavior.

Takeaway I'd be curious if other users agree that the behavior highlighted in italics above is a bug.

Thanks,  
Steve


Answers:
author: Nic Brough -Adaptavist-
body: I'd say it's working as intended. When you link page A to page B, you almost always want to retain that link wherever the pages are moved to, and when they're renamed. I'm not sure what other behaviour you'd want - broken links making a page less useful? Automatic removal leading to hanging sentences and broken paragraphs (e.g. "see abc:something. And then the..." becomes " for info see. And then the...") ?

One of the great powers of wikis is that they retain these types of links during reorganisations. If a link genuinely needs to be removed, that should be up to the author of the move/rename to deal with, as they're the one causing the need for removal.

comments: author: Stephen Kairys
body: Nic,

Thanks for your response. Two thoughts:

1. Perhaps, if you move to another space, Confluence should prompt you if you wish to retain the links?
2. COPYing the page, of course, would not change the link. And I would have done that; however, I MOVED it b/c I need to retain the page history and COPY does not support that retention.  

Bottom line: I'd love to know a workaround whereby I can somehow place a copy of my current page elsewhere with the following results:

* Retain any links to it.
* Preserve the page history.

Thanks again.


author: Nic Brough -Adaptavist-
body: Mmm, I'd find that really annoying, as 99% of the time, I don't want to remove the links. And for the last 1%, I probably want to edit over the holes they would leave in the doc.

A copy of a page is something different, you copy for a different reason. You won't retain links **to** it or history exactly because it's a new page in its own right, with a different location (of course, you keep the links in it, because they're part of the content)

I'm not sure what problem you're actually trying to solve with a "copy with history and lose outgoing links"


author: Stephen Kairys
body: Nic,

I don't want to lose the outgoing links. My goal is:

"Copy with history and preserve outgoing links."

e.g.

**Vendor Onboarding** -----\> **Vendor Setup**.

My workaround to copy **Vendor Setup** from the VENDOR space to the STEVE space,and the replace it with a fresh copy of it from the STEVE space. (The new copy contains extensive changes so copy-and-paste would be awkward.) That way links are preserved, and I have archived the previous copy of the doc.

However, this method loses my page history.

Thanks.


author: Nic Brough -Adaptavist-
body: Right, now I'm confused, because your original question could be paraphrased as "I want Confluence to destroy my outgoing links when I move a page". Now you're saying you're happy with not losing the outgoing links?

I can see why you want to show the page history, but that's needless duplication, and if the original changes, what do you do with more updates? I would copy the page and add a link back to the original saying "see the history of that if you need it"


author: Stephen Kairys
body: Nick, I stand corrected. I guess my thought process evolved as we were conversing.

How can I accept your most recent comment as an answer?

Thanks!


author: Nic Brough -Adaptavist-
body: Ah, good, I was getting very confused, thank you for clearing it up! Much appreciated!

Glad we've managed to help you through this one. Easiest way to close it is just accept the original answer - people here tend to read the comments on the correct answer if it's not the immediately correct one!


Tags: bug

link

move