Overview: How it works
Scroll Viewport is a Confluence App that allows you to quickly publish Confluence pages in a styled Help website. You write and edit your content in Confluence, structure individual pages into a page tree hierarchy, and then push content to Viewport. Viewport builds a static site from one or more Confluence spaces, preserving your page tree hierarchy as the site architecture.
Here is a schematic of how Confluence and Viewport are configured to publish the Synapse Docs website:
All drafts are edited, reviewed, and approved in a Confluence draft space, called “Synapse Docs (Working Drafts)”. You are currently reading this doc from within this draft space.
Once an article has been edited, reviewed, and approved, an admin syncs the final draft to a second Confluence space for final drafts.
This final draft space contains only the finished versions of every article in the Synapse Docs library. This space is hidden from most contributors to avoid confusion; keeping all working drafts in one space and all final drafts in another allows us to separate what is ready to publish and what is not.
Content in the final draft space is built into a user-facing help website using the Viewport app. When an admin triggers a new build, Viewport pulls all content from the final draft space and creates a static site.
Contributor workflow
To flag an issue or contribute directly to the docs, create a Jira ticket in the Docs Project. Your ticket will be triaged depending on the nature of the issue. For larger projects like major re-writes or new articles, you will be tagged to contribute directly in Confluence.
File an issue in Jira
Go to the Docs project in Jira and open a new ticket. In the description, you must include:
Specify the location: Provide a link to the relevant article or section where you want the change made.
Describe the problem or change: Write a detailed description of what is wrong or what needs to change. Screen caps are helpful.
Suggest a fix: Propose a solution or describe how the issue should be addressed. If you are proposing a new topic (such as a new feature), include links to internal docs with information about that topic/feature (user stories, feature requirements, etc). The more detail you can provide, the faster your issue will be triaged.
Contribute directly in Confluence
Depending on the nature of your Jira ticket, you may be tagged to contribute directly to the docs in Confluence.
Go to the Synapse Docs (Working Drafts) space and locate the article you want to update (or you may be tagged in the article).
Switch to edit mode by clicking the pencil icon (
) in the upper right toolbar.
Make your edits. Refer to the Style Guide and the How To sections below for help with how to write content.
To save your edits, click the three dots () in the upper right toolbar and select Publish with version comment. In the resulting pop-up, add a description of what you changed and click Publish. Note this action does not make your content publicly viewable yet, it is only viewable internally on Confluence.
Review and approval in Confluence
When you are ready for your content to be approved and sent to the Viewport site, click the Review button at the top of the page, then select +Add Reviewer.
Add Stacey Taylor and anyone else who you want to review the doc.
If no additional changes to the text are needed, your doc will be approved and synced with the final draft space. Your changes will be incorporated with the next build of the doc site (approximately weekly).
If additional changes are needed, you will work with your reviewers to address any remaining issues and then repeat the approval request process.
Confluence How To’s
Inserting and removing images
Use the editing toolbar in Confluence to insert images into your articles. Confluence will automatically add each image as an attachment to the page in addition to embedding the image in the article.
To remove an image, you must delete the image from the article itself, as well as delete it from the page attachments list. From the main page of an article (not in editing mode), click the three dots in the upper right () and select Attachments. Delete the images you no longer need.
Image naming conventions
If you are inserting a screen cap of the Synapse UI, name the file with a description of what image is showing, spaced with hyphens. For example, use report-violation-footer.png for an image of the Synapse footer showing where to find the link to report violations.
Changing image size
You can resize images within Confluence by dragging the edges of the image once you have embedded it on the page. However, these changes will not be reflected on the live Viewport site. To change the size of an image as it appears on the Viewport size, you must resize the image file itself. For more on resizing images see the Scroll Viewport help docs here.
Adding links to other articles or sections
To add a link to another Synapse docs page or section, go to http://help.synapse.org/docs and locate the article or section of interest. Copy the URL from that page, or copy the link next to a specific section heading. Paste this link into your Confluence page using the Confluence link editor ( ) in the editing toolbar.
Adding downloads and attachments
To add a download link to a page (e.g. a pdf, template, or other file that users need to download), add your file as an attachment to the Confluence page. From the main page view (not the Confluence editor), click the three dots at the top right of the screen and select attachments from the dropdown:
Upload your files.
In the Attachments view, right click on the name of the attachments and select Copy Linked Address.
Go to your page and add a link to the desired text. Paste in the attachment link as the URL. Viewport will render the Confluence URL into a file download for external users.
Note: Viewport can only render links for items that are within the associated Confluence space. Items outside of that space (links or attachments from other spaces) will not render correctly on your Viewport site.
Macros
There are many macros available in the Confluence editor to style a page and add functionality to a Confluence space. The Scroll Viewport app can render some macros, but not all. Viewport also has many features built in to its layouts that make many popular macros redundant (e.g. Viewport automatically creates a table of contents for every article), so in many cases the use of additional Confluence macros on the page is unnecessary. In general, unless directed by a doc admin to use a macro, avoid using them in articles destined for a Viewport site.