Use rich multi-excerpts (transclusion) for content reuse - even from page result lists. Replace parameters in excerpts. Include properties and sections from pages. Hide content dependent on roles and properties.
Writing modular documentation is not an easy feat. Creating a long document is easier than a short one. Trapping one information in one topic is hard. Creating a documentation based on lots of topics is for skilled writers. In a project environment, where we create documentation by the team for the team, we are not looking for perfection. Still we need tools to organized the information in topics of different sizes and employ tools to help us to reuse this information.
Transclusion also helps to create documents independently. A team working on a task may create a document collaboratively by writing each chapter of the document in individual topics. These chapters may further be divided into sections, each on its own wiki page. The document is assembled of all these parts by transclusion. Once a fragment on a page is changed, the changes are reflected immediately on the transcluding document. This document can be exported easily.
Building Blocks
The building blocks of a modular documentation are documents. The building blocks of documents are properties (defined by the Document Properties Marker Macro) and sections (defined by the Section Macro).
The projectdoc Toolbox allows to reuse these building blocks - properties and sections - easily with the Transclusion Macro and Display Document Property Macro.
You may even replace placeholders in the content while transcluding.
The tip Content Reuse provides an overview over the transclusion or excerpt features of the projectdoc Toolbox.
Transclusion made easy
Why easily? Suppose an author transcludes content from another page. In view mode the transcluded content is highlighted. By clicking on the name of the document at the top-right of the box, the author is able to jump to the page quickly. If clicking on the edit icon (pencil), the document is opened for editing with one click.
For performance reasons the fragments may be cached. In this case every transcluded content shows the last updated date and an icon to refresh the content from the cache (although the system typically recognizes stale content quickly).
Tools for Writers only
Note that these tools are only available for authors since readers typically have no interest in getting informed about content reuse.
If an author is interested in where a particular content is used, the information can be displayed on the page easily.
The projectdoc Toolbox also provided macros to make these sections only available for authors. But note that the content is only hidden and therefore not secure.
For more information on transclusion, please refer to Use Display Table for Transclusion References.
Just in case if you are bothering about transcluding content with inadequate section levels. Do not bother. The transclusion macros of the projectdoc Toolbox take care of adjusting the levels of the sections to the target level. For Confluence 5.8 and up this can even be done automatically!
Since version 1.10 of the projectdoc Toolbox you may even transclude tagged content from a document automatically and add additional sections and properties to the transcluding document. This feature is called delegate document. The delegate document is defined with the Document Properties Marker Macro.
