When will Confluence 4.0 be implemented in the hosted environment?
Asked by Barbara Green:

We are using the Confluence hosted environment, so I've been watching the 4.0 beta with interest. Do you have an estimate of when the 4.0 release might be implemented in the hosted world?

I'm also concerned with plug-in compatibility. Is there a sense that most plug-ins will work with the new version?


Answers:
author: Matt
body: Confluence 4.0 is now running on the Confluence Sandbox (<http://sandbox.onconfluence.com>) and is available for Hosted evauations of Confluence (<https://my.atlassian.com/hosted/signup/confluence>).


author: Joe Clark
body: We've been working hard to provide lots of information and guidance to third-party plugin developers to ensure that they are ready to support Confluence 4 in time for its release. As @Matt suggests, you should contact the individual plugin developers for concerns about specific plugins.

All Atlassian-supported Confluence plugins will be compatible with Confluence 4.0 from Day 1. :-)

comments: author: Barbara Green
body: Great to hear about the plug-ins! Thanks. As to the release date, I'm not sure I caught the planned date for 4.0, so a week after general release does not really give me an answer. Have you announced a possible release date?

Also, will there be an opportunity to test or at least get a peek at 4.0 in the hosted environment? Is there a sandbox? I am likely to be the one to train our folks on the new release, and would appreciate an opportunity to put something together before the fact.


author: Matt
body: We plan to have Confluence 4 available for hosted customers to request upgrades within a week of the final release.

RE: plugins -- I'd recommend contacting the plugin developer and asking directly their plans for support for Confluence 4.0.


author: Matt
body: Barbara, Atlassian does not pre-announce release dates. The best timeframe I can give you is sometime in the next 4 - 6 weeks.

You are able to dowload the first public beta of Confluence 4.0 to install on your own machine. Note that this release also brings new guided installers for Windows and Linux so installation is not a hassle. See here for more details:

<http://confluence.atlassian.com/x/5AYBDw>

If you are not able to install Confluence 4.0, you will be able to try it out in the test space on <http://confluence.atlassian.com> when it is upgraded to Confluence 4.0 in the next couple of weeks.

comments: author: Barbara Green
body: We're a Mac shop, so download is really not an option. Thanks for the clarification.


author: Matt
body: UPDATE: Confluence 4.0 (RC2) is now running on <http://confluence.atlassian.com>

comments: author: Barbara Green
body: It would be nice if there were a Demonstration space for 4.0 (even a Beta version). That would let me get some idea of what I need to do to help folks transition here.


author: Matt
body: Barbara, if you are logged in to <http://confluence.atlassian.com/> you can play with the new editor by adding a comment to any page in this space:

<http://confluence.atlassian.com/display/ds/Brief+Overview+of+Confluence>
> what I need to do to help folks transition here

Check out our Reference Guides for the new Confluence editor:

<http://bit.ly/confluence4>


author: Barbara Green
body: Yes, I looked at that site and I've read the docs, but I would very much like a space to really use the new editor: adding pages, working with tables and links and macros. I realize the hosted users are probably a small subset of your business, but it would be nice if we could be part of your Beta group. Or failing that, at least have an instance of the Demonstration space that we can use for training. I don't think that is unreasonable, since you could link to the space from the Beta doc, which is publicly accessible, rather than include it in the production space.


Tags: beta

confluence-server