Motivation

When I create a new page, I very often try to stay aligned with capitalization or phrasing of other page titles. But the moment I create a new page or edit a page, the sidebar is hidden. I completely loose the context where the page is created (visually, I know about the breadcrumb top navigation). I completely loose access to the way other titles are formatted or similar pages are named. This needs I need to abort editing, open Confluence again in a different tab, or something similar. This is incredible frustrating, because it happens all the time and always feels like working backwards.

Suggestion

Show the sidebar always: when viewing, editing, and creating pages.

Show new pages grayed out in the sidebar hierarchy where it will be inserted. This is already the case in view mode if I create a draft page and e.g. close the tab without saving.

Considerations

There might be a concern that showing the sidebar might confuse users that they are in "editing" mode. This could leave to situations where a lot of pages end up as drafts, because editors use the sidebar during editing to navigate away.

In this case, I would suggest disabling the sidebar such that it is visible but not clickable.

Another idea would be, that the user is reminded to save their work if they navigate out of editing mode.