How to add a page at two different places in a navigation (same / different spaces)
Asked by Anant Sabane:

I have a collection of topics that need to appear in different navigations in the same or different space than the one where these topics exist. Can anyone guide me on how to achieve it? When I create static HTML pages, I can achieve similar experience by creating two frames, left displaying navigation and right by displaying content. If I add link to the same page at one more place, it displays fine. I am looking to achieve something similar without adding new pages (with or without resuability - include macro).


Answers:
author: Jan Mueller
body: > i think, i understand your intention very well. One disadvantage of using hierarchies is, that your content have only one parent

That is the reason why this thread exists.   
Some sort of hierarchy has to exist.

The feedback came right from the userbase. They were seraching and found a large number of results. So they thought it would be faster to search by clicking through the page tree. Which is feasable when you have learned to work with folders / trees. I agree - with a lot of content this would be a painful process. That's where the links come in.

thanks for your thoughts.

Jan


author: Christina Schantin [Communardo]
body: The solution depends on how many of this topics you have:  

Think about this options:  

1. Horizontal Navigation: You can use the (free) SubSpace Plugin, to have an external link hierarchy in the horizontal navigation. Here you add for example also links to wiki-pages.  

2. You can add links in the sidebar above the page three.  

3. You can add one Wiki-Page with all links to your topics and include this page as a kind of header in all your pages in space.  

Maybe, you use one of this ideas or mix two ;-)

comments: author: Jan M?ller
body: Hello Christina,

unfortunately this would not work in our case.

It's a "browse-related" issue. Users do not only discover content by using the search or labels. Sometimes they browse the wiki hirarchy and this is where some sort of a sim-link would come in handy.

Think of a knowledge base where the same content is should be discoverable in different branches.

Or is it merely an issue that our users "think" in an old-fashioned way? :o

best,

Jan


author: Christina Schantin [Communardo]
body: Hello Jan,

<br />

i think, i understand your intention very well. One disadvantage of using hierarchies is, that your content have only one parent.   

If you want to use content in more than one places without dublicating, you can only link to this content or include the page with the include page macro.  

For linking, i gave you some ideas how you can do it. If you need links in the page tree, you can only use wiki pages with page includes.  

But be sure not to underestimate the abilities of your users. A lot of users search for content first, instead of using (especially) komplex page trees.

best, Christina


author: JohnB
body: Problem with the includepage macro workaround is that:

1. The page title of the page using the includepage macro cannot be the same as the real page
2. the child pages will not show up under the includepage macro page like it does under the real page.

Any idea if/when Confluence will get symlink like functionality?

comments: author: Jan Mueller
body: I would really like to know that as well.. Really does not sound like the best solution.


author: David at David Simpson Apps
body: Add the (original) page in one place, then create new (duplicate) pages in the alternative places in the Confluence hierarchy.

Use the [Include Page Macro](http://confluence.atlassian.com/display/DOC/Include+Page+Macro) on the duplicate pages to display the original page content.

comments: author: Anant Sabane
body: I tried this approach. Though it goes well with reusability of the content, it is not required to create a page even when we use static HTML. I thought an advanced wiki like confluence will have some facility / functionality that allows users to insert such pointers.


author: Jan Mueller
body: Hello David,

is this still regarded the best approach we have at this time?

I will be running into the same "issue" some time soon :o

best,

Jan