Page tree is back to space navigation sidebar as of May 2018, removing Pages menu item. Other sidebar items can be turned on/off using the Edit pencil icon at bottom right of the sidebar by space admin.

... "the ability to customise the sidebar has been reimplemented" ... that's the first I have heard about this.  Yet another change implemented that I have to "find out" about, rather than being informed about it in advance as would be the case if Atlassian cared about their paying customers.  What is the point in having your "What's New" page if you can't be bothered to tell people about ALL the changes on there?  Or do you have one or more other pages that I should be watching as well?

Mind you, when I checked it seems that it would be more accurate to say that "the ability to customise the sidebar has only been partially reimplemented and it is buggy ...".  I CAN edit items in the sidebar, but only if I right-click on them first so that the "Edit" icon doesn't disappear as soon as I move my cursor away from the entry I want to edit.  It also doesn't seem to be possible to change the name of an existing entry so it looks like I would have to delete the existing entry and then create a new one.  It is still not possible to make the "Space Shortcuts" that I have created available at all times, let alone the link to the "Blog" or "Space tools" - yes, I would like to be able to go straight in to these and not have to go back to the Overview first, and I would like to be able to make all but the space tools available to all anonymous users at all times.

Also, I still can't add a search field to the sidebar via wiki markup ... but then I wouldn't need to if we could CUSTOMISE the search options so that, by default, the search function helpfully provided by Atlassian in the new sidebar could be set so that it would ONLY search the current space.  I do not understand why it is not possible for Atlassian to "allow" an Admin to decide how their own site is set up ... what is the point in providing a search option that ALWAYS looks at ALL spaces available to the user?

We are (yet) another customer that has a number of anonymous users that access our site ... and they are the ones whose UX has been completely destroyed by these changes.  Please allow admins to have proper control of their own sites so that they can provide a good UX for anonymous users ... like we used to be able to do.

Thank you lminato, bruno.miretti and salomie1307526572 for your feedback.

I've linked this issue to https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/CONFCLOUD-56841 owing to the strong connection between the two problems described (and solutions), and will keep this issue open.

In regards to space shortcuts being visible consistently across all space navigation, please vote on this issue: https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/CONFCLOUD-57523.

Having a link in the sidebar called PAGES is unnecessary - BECAUSE:

1. Currently, the link, as Bruno explains, is just another link to another page - which is entirely wasted time and effort, and confusing

When you click on any of the pages, then suddenly the sidebar is populated with a list of pages in the site...THAT view is the useful one...and how it used to work...Why remove that? 

But then...once you have selected one of the sub pages, the link in the sidebar to OVERVIEW disappears...WHY?  Now your customer has to click on PAGES again, in order to see the OVERVIEW link, so they can click that...??  

The new navigation only makes sense to someone who uses the site daily...and will not make sense to customers.  It is difficult to get people to read articles as it is, and if you fiddle with the navigation, the confusion alone will deter them from trying to find the information.

The "Pages" option is confusing (and I don't talk about it's layout with "User icon" displayed everywhere where this is not the author icon that is available for anonymous users whereas they can't see it when reading a page), the sidebar customization with the page tree and space shortcuts that could be seen on all pages including the "overview" page was better. Moreover I don't like the fact when you navigate in child pages, you have to click on "<- Pages" then "Overview" to get back to the space home page, a page we generally customize to help users in navigating by adding some comments and explanation (this is not possible with the "Pages" page you provided). Getting back to the home space requires too many clicks and as we can't click anymore on the "space name" that is above this "<- Pages" link because it now displays a drop down list, navigation is very very complicated. I could click on top of the page as the space name is also displayed in the form "<space name> / ... / <my page>" but if the space name is too long, the display is ugly and does not mean anything. And I can also mention the space history located above the "<- Pages" option does not work for anonymous users, all they have is "All spaces", no history, meaning it is more complicated for anonymous users to navigate between spaces.

With the option you provided to allow us to add space shortcuts in the sidebar, I can't anymore create a common page that can be included in all sidebars, that was very easy then to add a shortcut to all my documentation spaces, now it's a pain as I have to update all spaces one by one.

Conclusion: I do not need the "Pages" option, please give us back the sidebar customization option you removed, display the page tree on all pages, display the header/footer on all pages including the overview page, add more customization in your new releases and stop removing features your customers use !

In our use of Confluence, the Pages link in the sidebar takes the user to a page that shows the page tree with the Contributors and Last Modified columns, the last two they don't need (i.e. doesn't really give them any useful information). And as far as the page tree goes, it's better shown in the side bar so the user can be on a page and then click to another page they want to go to rather than going to the Pages page first. 

So the page tree in the side bar is useful, but the "Pages" link in the side bar which takes you to a page showing the page tree seems like a few clicks too many (and not of any value to our users). And thus we'd like to have the ability to remove it.

Other comments on this can be found in this issue: https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/CONFCLOUD-56841

Hi all - as you are aware, the ability to customise the sidebar has been reimplemented.

Pages however cannot be removed from the configuration. As this was part of the original suggestion, I'm really interested to hear about the use case for removing this from the sidebar - please can you let me know if this is a requirement for you?

I agree Lucy! It should not be visible. I also see that I can export the site as an anonymous user, even though permissions specifically prohibit it...(But this has nothing to do with the sidebar, so I will log another issue about this one)

Good pick up Bruno! I'm seeing "Space tools" for an anonymous user also (on MS Edge & Chrome). It doesn't look like it allows you to do much, but once again, it's giving users another link with no value to them and that will just confuse them. 

Hey devs, I am seeing the "Space tools" option as an anonymous user (tested with Firefox and MS Edge). Isn't there an issue here ?