Issue Summary

The Page Properties Report macro does not support sorting by values provided by third-party Forge Custom UI macros (or Connect macros). When a user clicks a column header in the Page Properties Report to sort by a column containing values rendered by a third-party Forge Custom UI macro, nothing happens — the report order does not change. The feature request is to extend the Page Properties Report sort mechanism to invoke the adfExport function of Forge macros at sort time, so that the exported ADF value (plain text) can be used as the sort key, while the macro itself continues to render dynamically in the report view.

Steps to Reproduce

Step 1: Install a Forge Custom UI macro app that implements the adfExport function (e.g. Easy Dropdown Menu). Create several Confluence pages, each containing a Page Properties macro. In the right column of the Page Properties macro, insert the Forge Custom UI macro and select a value (e.g. a dropdown option).

Step 2: Create a Page Properties Report macro on a separate page, targeting the label used on the source pages. Confirm the report renders correctly — the Forge macro values are displayed dynamically in the report table. Click any column header that corresponds to a column containing Forge Custom UI macro values to sort by that column.

Expected Results

The Page Properties Report sorts the rows based on the text value returned by the adfExport function of the Forge Custom UI macro in each row, in ascending or descending order. The macros continue to render dynamically in the sorted report.

Actual Results

Clicking the column header has no effect. The report order does not change. No error is displayed to the user. The macros remain visible in their original order.

No exception is thrown in any log file — this is a silent functional limitation, not an error condition. The root cause is that the Page Properties Report sort comparator (ExtractedDetailsComparator) operates on the stored ADF/XHTML representation of page content, which for Forge Custom UI macros contains only a macro placeholder node with no inline text value. The adfExport pipeline is not invoked during live in-page sort operations.

Workaround

Currently there is no known workaround for this behavior. A workaround will be added here when available.

Note: As a partial mitigation, the sort operation does not cause Forge Custom UI macro values to disappear from the report (unlike the Connect equivalent, where macro values would disappear after a sort). The values remain visible but the sort order is not applied.