This page last changed on Apr 02, 2008 by jnolen.
 | Plugin Safety Plugins are very powerful: they can change the behaviour of almost any part of the Confluence server. This makes it very important that you trust a plugin before you install it. Always be aware of where (and who) a plugin comes from. |
The Plugin Repository provides an easy way to install and configure plugins.
- If you are using Confluence version 2.3 or later, the Plugin Repository is included as part of Confluence.
- If you are using Confluence 2.0 - 2.2.10, you can use the Plugin Repository after you install the Confluence Repository Client.
- Confluence versions prior to 2.0 cannot use the Plugin Repository, so you will need to install and configure plugins manually instead.
You need to have System Administrator permissions in order to install and configure plugins.
On this page:
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Using the Plugin Repository
Go to the 'Administration Console' and click 'Plugin Repository' in the left-hand panel. The following will be displayed:
Screenshot: Plugin Repository
Filtering the List of Plugins
Along the top of the page, you'll see three items which allow you to choose the plugins you want displayed:
- Status filter — Defaults to 'All Plugins'. Choose one of the following to limit the list of plugins displayed:
- 'Installed Plugins' – Plugins which have been installed on your Confluence instance.
- 'Outdated Plugins' — Plugins for which updates are available
- 'Available Plugins' — Plugins which are available, but have not yet been installed.
- 'Supported Plugins' — All plugins which are supported by Atlassian or a third-party.
- Search — Enter text in the middle textbox to quickly find what you're looking for:
- Quickly locate plugins by searching on their title, description, vendor and other details. Just type what you are looking for and let Confluence do the rest
- The search results are filtered by the status filter (as discussed above), so if you want to see all installed plugins from Adaptavist.com, for example, set the filter to 'Installed Plugins' and type 'Adaptavist.com' into the search box.
- Categories list — Filter by category:
- Simply choose the desired category from the list and only plugins relating to that category will be displayed.
- Note that plugins can exist in more than one category.
Using the List of Plugins
Under the filter options, the list of plugins matching the current filter settings is shown in a table.
Each column in the table shows information about a particular plugin, and allows you further configuration options:
- Plugin Name — Displays the name of the plugin (linked to the detailed information page)and the plugin vendor (linked to their website if applicable)
- Click the '+' icon to expand the information display showing plugin description.
- Click the '-' icon to hide the description again.
- Payment — Can be one of the following:
- Free (self explanatory)
- Donate (it's free, but you should consider donating to keep it that way)
- Buy (it's commercial - click the link to show a price list and purchase online)
- Status — Shows the current status of this plugin in respect to your Confluence installation:
- Installed - installed and up-to-date
- Outdated - installed, but there are new versions available
- Available - not installed yet
- Non Repository - a version is installed which is not in the repository
- Support — Tells you who supports the plugin:
- 'Atlassian' — The plugin is supported by Atlassian. If you have any problems, please raise a ticket at the Atlassian Support System.
- 'Unsupported' — The plugin has been developed by a third party, not by Atlassian, and is not currently supported by Atlassian. In addition, the third party has not yet given detailed information about support arrangements. This does not necessarily mean that the plugin is not supported. Please refer to the plugin's home page in the [Confluence Extension] space.
- The 'Support' column can also contain a link to the third-party plugin support site.
- Read more information about supported plugins.
- Install — Install, upgrade or uninstall a plugin:
- When installing or upgrading, everything is automatic (i.e. it downloads and installs for you, etc). Although the client (since 1.0.2) warns you of dependencies and (since 1.0.3) will do its best to check what has been downloaded is what you asked for - Confluence may break as if you had uploaded the plugins to the Plugin Manger yourself. Where it can, the client will error constructively allowing you to choose the best course of action for yourself. In general, things usually work - and if they don't its a bug with the client or the metadata.
- If the Confluence Repository Client encounters a password request when downloading the plugin (usually case with Commercial plugins), you will be prompted for a username and password.
- If the plugin is installed into WEB-INF (or otherwise uninstallable) it will display 'Manually Installed. where the actions would be.
- Enabled — If the box is ticked, the plugin is enabled, otherwise it's either disabled or partially disabled. You can enable or disable individual modules within the plugin from the plugin details screen (see later).
- Configure — If the plugin offers further configuration options, you can click the 'Configure' link. A new screen will open, showing the specific options offered by the plugin.
You can click the table headings to sort the table. Click a second time to reverse the sort.
Viewing Plugin Modules and Versions
When you click the name of a plugin in the plugin list, you'll be taken to the detailed view for that plugin.
General information and plugin module details are shown at the top of the display and from here you can disable or enable individual modules.
Note: Disabling a plugin module may cause other modules in the same plugin to cease to function correctly. When in doubt, make sure you disable or enable the entire plugin.
Near the bottom of the display a table outlines all plugin versions and shows which you have installed. Just like the plugins list, you can click the '+' to expand the details shown for a specific version.
This screen also allows you to quickly install, upgrade, downgrade and uninstall any version of the plugin.
Administering the Plugin Repository
There are various settings on the 'Admin' tab.
The most important of these is the 'Data Source' — without this, you'll see no plugins in the list and will get a fair number of errors.
The 'Earliest Plugin State' allows you to filter the plugin list to versions at or above a specific state: Alpha, Beta, Release Candidates, Stable. If you are running in a production environment, you will usually want to set this setting to 'Stable + Release Candidates' or 'Stable Only'.
The 'Plugin Compatibility' setting allows you to restrict the list to only show plugin versions that are specifically known to work with your version of Confluence.
In many cases, plugins will work with your version of Confluence, but they might be marked as 'unknown' compatibility if the plugin author hasn't been able to test with that specific Confluence version. As such, it's extremely useful if you find an 'unknown' version of a plugin to work (or not work) with your Confluence that you let us know (by any means possible) so that we can update the repository to reflect this.
The 'Category Visibility' setting allows you to trim down the categories list by hiding categories that don't contain a plugin yet.
Uploading a Non-Repository Plugin
There are several plugins that are not currently listed by the Plugin Repository which need to be manually uploaded either as a file or from a remote server URL.
If you want to install such a plugin:
- Click the 'Upload' tab.
- Enter either the file name or the URL of the remote server URL.
- Click the 'Install' button.
Displaying Plugin Repository Information on Confluence Pages
Above we have described the 'Plugin Repository' screen in the Administration Console. If you wish to display some information about your plugins on a Confluence page, you can use the Plugin Repository macros.
These macros are available to Confluence instances ("clients") that have the Confluence Atlassian Plugin Repository v.2.0.13+ installed and configured to talk to a server that provides data about plugins.
{repository-plugin}
Displays rendered information from the metadata in the repository.
Parameter |
Required |
Values |
Default |
Notes |
key |
yes |
plugin key, such as com.atlassian.confluence.extra.rsvp |
(none) |
The plugin to display data about. |
profile |
no |
the key of one of the profiles configured locally |
default |
This profile will be used to get plugin data. |
outputType |
no |
overview-table, version-grid, description |
overview-table |
Format of the macro output. |
suppressHeader |
no |
true, false |
false |
Whether or not to include a header with the output. Only applies when outputType is version-grid or description. |
{recentlyupdated-plugins}
Displays an ordered list of the plugins with the most recently released versions, according to the plugin metadata.
Parameter |
Required |
Values |
Default |
Notes |
product |
no |
a name of a product that plugins can be written for and stored in the repository (in our case confluence or jira) |
(all products) |
Allows restricting results to those plugins for a particular product. |
count |
no |
integer |
10 |
Number of result plugins to return. |
mode |
no |
table, list |
table |
Indicates the form in which to display the results |
{popular-plugins}
Displays an ordered list of the most popular plugins. The popularity of a plugin is based on number of downloads of the plugin jar that have been recorded on the server.
Parameter |
Required |
Values |
Default |
Notes |
product |
no |
a name of a product that plugins can be written for and stored in the repository (in our case confluence or jira) |
(all products) |
Allows restricting results to those plugins for a particular product. |
count |
no |
integer |
10 |
Number of result plugins to return. |
range |
no |
one of two formats:
- year, month, week, or day
- an integer followed by y, m, w, or d (e.g. 6w)
|
month |
The length of time from which to consider plugin downloads:
- one of the unit given, e.g. one month from the start or end date given
- integer number of units given (always goes back in time from today), e.g. 6w or -6w means the past six weeks
|
rangeStart |
no |
date in the form yyyy-MM-dd |
depends on range and rangeEnd |
Cannot be used with the second form of the range parameter. |
rangeEnd |
no |
date in the form yyyy-MM-dd |
today's date (if rangeStart is not given) |
Cannot be used with the second form of the range parameter. |
mode |
no |
table, list |
table |
Indicates the form in which to display the results |
{download-stat}
Provides statistics about the number of downloads for each plugin.
Parameter |
Required |
Values |
Default |
Notes |
product |
no |
a name of a product that plugins can be written for and stored in the repository (in our case confluence or jira) |
(all plugins) |
Allows restricting results to those plugins for a particular product. If both product and key are specified, then key will be ignored. |
key |
no |
plugin key, such as com.atlassian.confluence.extra.rsvp |
(all plugins) |
Allows restricting results to those for a particular plugin. If both product and key are specified, then key will be ignored. |
version |
no |
build number of the plugin specified by key |
(all versions) |
Allows restricting results to those for a particular version of a plugin. Can only be used if a plugin key (and not a product name) is provided. |
range |
no |
one of two formats:
- year, month, week, or day
- an integer followed by y, m, w, or d (e.g. 6w)
|
month |
The length of time from which to consider plugin downloads:
- one of the unit given, e.g. one month from the start or end date given
- integer number of units given (always goes back in time from today), e.g. 6w or -6w means the past six weeks
|
rangeStart |
no |
date in the form yyyy-MM-dd |
depends on range and rangeEnd |
Cannot be used with the second form of the range parameter. |
rangeEnd |
no |
date in the form yyyy-MM-dd |
today's date (if rangeStart is not given) |
Cannot be used with the second form of the range parameter. |
increment |
no |
monthly, daily, yearly, weekly, total |
daily |
Size of the chunks of hits to return. |
format |
no |
compact, full |
full |
Will be ignored unless increment equals total. In the compact mode, only the number of hits will be displayed. In the full mode, the number of hits are displayed in a table with the date range; the table is similar to other result tables displayed by the download-stat macro. |
{confluence-status}
Displays the update status of Confluence.
Parameter |
Required |
Values |
Default |
Notes |
update-only |
no |
true, false |
false |
If true, a result will only be shown if updates are required. |
profile |
no |
the key of one of the profiles configured locally |
default |
|
{plugin-status}
Displays a list of plugins that need to be updated. Currently, this macro has a bug where it will cause a Confluence system error if someone who is not logged in tries to view it.
Parameter |
Required |
Values |
Default |
Notes |
update-only |
no |
true, false |
false |
If true, a result will only be shown if updates are required. |
profile |
no |
the key of one of the profiles configured locally |
default |
This profile will be used to get plugin data. |
{plugin-repository}
Displays the table of plugin information that by default only appears in the admin section. Info that non-admins should not see is hidden from them.
Parameter |
Required |
Values |
Default |
Notes |
profileKey |
no |
the key of one of the profiles configured locally |
default |
This profile will be used to get plugin data. |
RELATED TOPICS
Confluence Plugin Guide
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