projectdoc Toolbox

Explains the differences between and commonalities of the Confluence Page Properties and the projectdoc Toolbox Document Properties.

This is a comparison between page and document properties. Users of Confluence learn the difference between and commonalities of

page properties provided by Confluence macros and
document properties supported by projecdoc Toolbox macros.

Confluence Macros

projectdoc Toolbox Macros

We refer to Confluence 5.9 and the projectdoc Toolbox 1.10 for our discussion.

Please bear in mind that projectdoc is our product - so there we are certainly biased in favour for document properties.

Nonetheless we hope that our discussion is fair.

If you think this is not the case, especially if you feel we are lacking knowledge of features in favour of page properties, please give us a shout! We will check and adjust your issue with our presentation.

Summary

Page properties are easy to use, but up to version 5.7 of Confluence provide limited capabilities to select and display the properties. While document properties provide some additional features, people my consider specifying the where clause to constrain the search result as complicated.

If page properties is providing all you'll ever ask for, you should stay with it: it is free and is part of every Confluence installation.

If you are asking for more and paying for additional features that make you more productive is not a problem for you, check out document properties.

The following table lists features that are related to one of the macros discussed, but are implemented by different macros. In this case the macro providing the feature is listed. No extra cost is involved to use the mentioned macros, since all these macros are either part of Confluence or the projectdoc Toolbox Add-on.

Feature	Page Properties <=5.7	Page Properties >=5.8	Document Properties
Column Selection	YES	YES	YES
Page Query	By Space and Label	By Space and predefined Properties	By Space and any Property Value
Complex queries	NO	YES Limited CQL (AND)	YES Lucene Syntax with some preprocessing
Specify Sort Order	BY 1 COLUMN NAME	BY 1 COLUMN NAME	STABLE SORTING USING MULTIPLE COLUMNS
Rendering	Table List (Content by Label Macro)	Table List (Content by Label Macro)	Table Vertical Table Definition List Bullet List Numbered List
Change Column Heading	TITLE ONLY	TITLE ONLY	EVERY HEADING
Limit number of Hits	NO	YES	YES
Pagination	YES	YES	NO
Show Comment and Like Counts	YES	YES	NO
Multiple Sets of Properties	YES	YES	NO
Property Controls Supported	NO	NO	YES (e.g. "hide")
Select Single Values	NO	NO	YES Display Property Macro / Display Properties Macro
Control Hits	NO	NO	YES Tour Macro
Access Section Content	NO	LIMITED ONE EXCERPT	YES
Transclude by Properties	NO	LIMITED ONE EXCERPT	YES Transclude Documents Macro
Allows to Hide Properties Table	YES	YES	YES
Support Calculations	NO	NO	YES numeric
Space Properties	NO	NO	YES hierarchic (delegate and search)
Control Properties Table Rendering	NO	NO	YES
Cost	FREE	FREE	STARTS WITH $10 see prices for more users
No Extra Installation required	YES	YES	NO
Supports Confluence Version	4.x (limited features) and 5.x	5.8+	5.5+
Vendor	Atlassian	Atlassian	smartics

Before you start

We suppose that you know Confluence and its basic concepts.

Examination in Detail

Compare the features of the 4 macros: have screenshots showing the macros in action!

References

More information on the macros discussed can be found at the following locations.

Confluence 5.8+ Page Properties
- Page Properties Macro - a table containing key value pairs.
- Page Properties Report Macro - displays pages matching selection criteria (label and space).
Confluence 5.7- Page Properties
- Page Properties Macro - a table containing key value pairs.
- Page Properties Report Macro - displays pages matching selection criteria (label and space).
Confluence 4 Metadata
- Metadata Macro - previous version of Page Properties Macro.
- Metadata Summary Macro - previous version of Page Properties Report Macro.
projectdoc Document Properties
- Document Properties Marker Macro - a table containing document properties. Three columns: name, value and meta data (aka controls) to a property.
- Display Table Macro - lists references to projectdoc documents in a table. Allows to select document properties for columns. Also non-list representations are provided.

Space shortcuts

Page tree

Docs

Support

Free Blueprints

Tooling for Blueprints

Free Extensions

Spaces

Plugins for Maven

Incubator

Libraries for Java

Incubator

Add-ons for Confluence

Tools

Support

Team

Legal

Summary

Before you start

Examination in Detail

References

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