Summary & Highlights

Hello and welcome to our brand new app - Linchpin Essentials!

You may ask yourself - what's that? What does it do? And we are happy to tell you all about it!

Linchpin Essentials is the brand new introduction to Linchpin and a better solution to your default Confluence. Linchpin Essentials bundles three powerful apps to make your Confluence instance more structured, good looking and informative.

We prepared a summary of the most important new features, so you can keep track of them. If you want more info about a specific function, use the navigation to jump to this function's release notes.

Let's start with Linchpin Theme. The Linchpin Theme app will make your Confluence truly yours. Your system deserves a long-needed make over! Linchpin Theme allows you to quickly integrate your corporate design into your Confluence instance. Customize the look of buttons, links, teasers. Change the header and footer design and create space layouts to give every space a custom theme. Macros like the 'Layout box' and the 'Teaser macro' allow you to structure your information in an organized and good looking way. The theme wizard will even create a theme for you! Provide it with a primary color and a logo and the wizard will do the configuration magic (which you can later edit manually). The sidebar is your quick access point to your favorite contacts, pages and your open tasks. It also includes a history of viewed and edited pages and spaces.

Secondly, the navigation menu. The navigation menu allows you to create complex, yet simple to use menus. Choose from different styles and create web-like menus with simple drag & drop procedures. You can, of course, decide freely how complex your menu should be - it can consist of single items displayed next to each other or include several submenus. And naturally, you can style and personalize your menu to your liking. Change the color of the links, the background color, the opacity and so on. It's your system, so it's your choice how it looks like!

And last but not least, Linchpin User Profiles. Linchpin Essentials expands the Confluence user profiles with thirteen new profile field types - from simple text input to language selection, instant messenger integration, validated phone field (which automatically verifies if the input is correct!) and LDAP/XML fields. Display more information in your profile - be it your expertise, certifications or personal informations like hobbies or your favorite cake.

Also, the XML & LDAP import make it possible to obtain user profile data from a file stored locally or on another server. Furthermore, the profile picture can be imported, too. URLs or LDAP fields can serve as sources. And the Content responsibility macro allows you to display the responsible person(s) for every project. The macro includes the responsible user's name, profile picture and a custom field which you can choose freely (be it their mail, phone number or something else). Users will always know who to ask for support. 

Theme

Linchpin Theme includes the possibility to style many elements, including the dashboard, content colors, buttons and links, the header, the footer, the sidebar, space layouts, Teaser macros, and a custom login screen. Furthermore, the space directory has been improved - categorize thematically related spaces and display them inside the Confluence sidebar.

New features

• Dashboard
  Create a custom dashboard to display the most important information and tools. The new dashboard gives you no restrictions at all. Design it however you like! The standard Confluence dashboard can be disabled or both dashboard options can be placed next to each other.
• Content colors
  Customize the color of your headlines and Confluence panels (Note, Information, Warning & Tip).
• Buttons and links
  Customize the color of your links and buttons. You can also customize the hover colors and text colors inside the buttons.
• Header
  Upload your logo and position it to the left or the right. You can also display any string of text here. The background of the header can be filled with a color of your choice or your own image. 
• Space layouts
  Space layouts allows you to create different themes for different spaces! Space layouts overwrite global layout settings to ensure that your custom space layout is always applied.
• Sidebar
  The sidebar gives you quick access to your favorite contacts, your favorite pages, your view & edit history, your open tasks and Jira issues. When it comes to contacts, you can group them and leave notes (only visible to you) with important informations.
• 'Teaser' macro
  Three teaser styles to choose from: standard, image and icon. Use them to display information in a nice way or include URLs and create informative buttons with hidden text etc. 
• 'Layout box' macro
  Boxes, boxes, boxes - This macro gives you the option to better distribute content on any page. Options like inner and outer spacings allow you to create flexible designs. It's a very powerful tool, once mastered.
• Custom login screen
  Greet your users with a pretty login screen. Include a custom welcome message and a background image fitting your corporate design.
• Improved space directory
  • 'Spaces' macro
    Select a list of spaces. The macro offers you the possibility to display either all spaces, or certain space categories, archived spaces etc.
  • Space types
    Group thematically related spaces into categories and display them inside the Confluence sidebar. This gives your quicker access to all spaces of a certain type.
• Footer
  The footer is customizable - change the color to fit the rest of your theme and include new link columns to display the important links directly inside the footer.
• Theme wizard
  Upload a logo, set a primary color and your theme is up and running.
• Read-only mode
  The Linchpin Theme is compatible with the read-only mode in Confluence Data Center.
• "Aura" compatibility
  Linchpin Theme is compatible with the "Aura" app.
• SINCE 1.0.0 New header image
  We modernized our default Linchpin Theme Header image.
• SINCE 1.0.0 Confirmation for Theme Wizard
  When using the Theme Wizard, you will now be asked for confirmation, just to be double sure you don't overwrite your carefully designed theme. In addition, the header background image won't be overwritten anymore.
  
  

Navigation

Create simple or complex menus which are simple to use and allow for a quick navigation. There are three navigation styles you can choose from: plain, flyout and extended flyout. You can create submenus via drag & drop procedures and also create menus for anonymous users. Furthermore, via the 'Menu' macro you can insert your menu on any page!

New features

• Navigation bar
  Create a central menu inside your header.
• Menu styles
  • Plain (best used for single menu items)
  • Flyout (best used when some submenus exist)
  • Extended flyout (best used when many submenus exist)
• Submenus
  Create submenus via drag & drop. You can also create submenus for submenus! Via the control panel or drag & drop you can transform submenus to top elements and vice verse.
• Menus for anonymous users
  Create different menus for anonymous users to hide valuable information which should only be available for your coworkers.
• Menu editors
  Give certain users the permissions to edit the central menu without making them Confluence administrators.

User profiles

Create meaningful user profiles. Thirteen new profile field types allow you to display any needed information - be it your expertise, your spoken languages, a phone number which is validated or personal hobbies and links to your favorite videos. Additionally, profile field data can be imported from an external server via LDAP or XML. Profile pictures can be uploaded to Confluence or imported via URLs or LDAP fields. And the 'Content responsibility' macro is a lightweight macro which allows you to display the responsible person for any project - including their name, profile picture and extra information like telephone number or e-mail address.

New features

• Improved user profiles
  Make your profile about you. Include more information like your personal hobbies and work-relevant information like spoken languages, technical skills, certifications etc. Give other users the informations they need to optimize the teamwork.
• Additional field types
  Linchpin User Profiles includes thirteen new field types. Including regular text fields, validated phone number fields, fields dependent on others, LDAP import fields, multiselect fields and many more!
• LDAP import
  Import profile field data from your LDAP resources and let Confluence automatically synchronize changes to the profile between your Confluence system and your LDAP resource.
• XML import
  Import additional user profile data from an XML file (for example data exported from a SAP IDM). The file can be stored locally or on a web server.
• Import of profile pictures
  Users can still upload their profile pictures to Confluence. But if you want to include other options, you can also use URLs and LDAP fields as source for profile pictures now!
• Content responsibilities
  Display the responsible person for any project. This light-weighted macro displays the responsible user's profile picture, name and an additional, customizable field, which can be used to display the phone number, position, e-mail address and so on.
• Read-Only mode compatibility
  The Confluence Data Center read-only mode is supported.
• SINCE 1.0.0 New look for people directory
  The people directory now has a modern look and lets you search users by profile fields.
• SINCE 1.0.0 Refresh for user profiles
  The user profile page has also been refreshed, and you can let your users upload their own header background images.
• SINCE 1.0.0 First steps towards integration of identity providers
  First steps in supporting profile field data coming from identity providers (IdPs) via third-party apps: You can decide which profile fields should be filled by an IdP.

Bugfixes

• SINCE 1.0.0 When using the new validated phone field, the user's country is detected more reliably.
• SINCE 1.0.0 Cascading fields unfortunately don't work in the Custom User Search, but you could select them them in the past. Not anymore.
• SINCE 1.0.0 When updating your user profile via Linchpin Assistant, the layout isn't broken anymore.
• SINCE 1.0.0 When configuring dependent fields, you can now correctly create rules to match field values with brackets like "IT (System)".
• SINCE 1.0.0 Uploading a profile picture via our REST API now works reliably. Previously, every second upload did reset the profile picture.

Complete changelog

Here is a complete overview of all of the changes that we've implemented in our Linchpin Essentials release. Be warned, though. It is a long list. 

New Features

• Dashboard
  Create a custom dashboard to display the most important information and tools. The new dashboard gives you no restrictions at all. Design it however you like! The standard Confluence dashboard can be disabled or both dashboard options can be placed next to each other.
• Content colors
  Customize the color of your headlines and Confluence panels (Note, Information, Warning & Tip).
• Buttons and links
  Customize the color of your links and buttons. You can also customize the hover colors and text colors inside the buttons.
• Header
  Upload your logo and position it to the left or the right. You can also display any string of text here. The background of the header can be filled with a color of your choice or your own image. 
• Space layouts
  Space layouts allows you to create different themes for different spaces! Space layouts overwrite global layout settings to ensure that your custom space layout is always applied.
• Sidebar
  The sidebar gives you quick access to your favorite contacts, your favorite pages, your view & edit history, your open tasks and Jira issues. When it comes to contacts, you can group them and leave notes (only visible to you) with important informations.
• 'Teaser' macro
  Three teaser styles to choose from: standard, image and icon. Use them to display information in a nice way or include URLs and create informative buttons with hidden text etc. 
• 'Layout box' macro
  Boxes, boxes, boxes - This macro gives you the option to better distribute content on any page. Options like inner and outer spacings allow you to create flexible designs. It's a very powerful tool, once mastered.
• Custom login screen
  Greet your users with a pretty login screen. Include a custom welcome message and a background image fitting your corporate design.
• Improved space directory
  • 'Spaces' macro
    Select a list of spaces. The macro offers you the possibility to display either all spaces, or certain space categories, archived spaces etc.
  • Space types
    Group thematically related spaces into categories and display them inside the Confluence sidebar. This gives your quicker access to all spaces of a certain type.
• Footer
  The footer is customizable - change the color to fit the rest of your theme and include new link columns to display the important links directly inside the footer.
• Theme wizard
  Upload a logo, set a primary color and your theme is up and running.
• New content modules for the Linchpin Sidebar
  All updates stream, open Confluence tasks, open Jira issues.
• New configuration for the Linchpin Sidebar
  Decide which content modules to show and which to hide.
• Read-only mode
  The Linchpin Theme is now compatible with the read-only mode in Confluence Data Center.
• "Aura" compatibility
  We added compatibility with the "Aura" app.
• Navigation bar
  Create a central menu inside your header.
• Menu styles
  • Plain (best used for single menu items)
  • Flyout (best used when some submenus exist)
  • Extended flyout (best used when many submenus exist)
• Submenus
  Create submenus via drag & drop. You can also create submenus for submenus! Via the control panel or drag & drop you can transform submenus to top elements and vice verse.
• Menus for anonymous users
  Create different menus for anonymous users to hide valuable information which should only be available for your coworkers.
• Menu editors
  Give certain users the permissions to edit the central menu without making them Confluence administrators.
• Improved user profiles
  Make your profile about you. Include more information like your personal hobbies and work-relevant information like spoken languages, technical skills, certifications etc. Give other users the informations they need to optimize the teamwork.
• Additional field types
  Linchpin User Profiles includes thirteen new field types. Including regular text fields, validated phone number fields, fields dependent on others, LDAP import fields, multiselect fields and many more!
• LDAP import
  Import profile field data from your LDAP resources and let Confluence automatically synchronize changes to the profile between your Confluence system and your LDAP resource.
• XML import
  Import additional user profile data from an XML file (for example data exported from a SAP IDM). The file can be stored locally or on a web server.
• Import of profile pictures
  Users can still upload their profile pictures to Confluence. But if you want to include other options, you can also use URLs and LDAP fields as source for profile pictures now!
• Content responsibilities
  Display the responsible person for any project. This light-weighted macro displays the responsible user's profile picture, name and an additional, customizable field, which can be used to display the phone number, position, e-mail address and so on.
• SINCE 1.0.0 New header image
  We modernized our default Linchpin Theme Header image.
  
• SINCE 1.0.0 New look for people directory
  The people directory now has a modern look and lets you search users by profile fields.
• SINCE 1.0.0 Refresh for user profiles
  The user profile page has also been refreshed, and you can let your users upload their own header background images.
• SINCE 1.0.0 First steps towards integration of identity providers
  First steps in supporting profile field data coming from identity providers (IdPs) via third-party apps: You can decide which profile fields should be filled by an IdP.
  
• SINCE 1.0.0 Confirmation for Theme Wizard
  When using the Theme Wizard, you will now be asked for confirmation, just to be double sure you don't overwrite your carefully designed theme. In addition, the header background image won't be overwritten anymore.

Bugfixes

• SINCE 1.0.0 When using the new validated phone field, the user's country is detected more reliably.
• SINCE 1.0.0 Cascading fields unfortunately don't work in the Custom User Search, but you could select them them in the past. Not anymore.
• SINCE 1.0.0 When updating your user profile via Linchpin Assistant, the layout isn't broken anymore.
• SINCE 1.0.0 When configuring dependent fields, you can now correctly create rules to match field values with brackets like "IT (System)".
• SINCE 1.0.0 Uploading a profile picture via our REST API now works reliably. Previously, every second upload did reset the profile picture.