I'm working on a new version of the Metadata Plugin which provides the ability to add metadata to spaces, and to use that to build space hierarchies. I now use this to create a root space beneath which all the other spaces are parented. I then have a replacement for the breadcrumb code that will show these space hierarchies, and optionally drop the 'Dashboard' link.

I'd love to get your opinions on this approach. I'm using it to have a home page that doesn't look like an administrative UI (i.e. the dashboard), which I think is too confusing to ordinary users.

If you are interested in playing with this, a beta release of the new plugin is available here:

http://confluence.atlassian.com/display/CODEGEIST/Metadata+Plugin+2

I hope to have a final version uploaded to the plugin repository next week.

The "welcome message" is a great idea.

It would also be good to be able to choose how many of your Favourites are displayed on the dashboard.

Thanks for the comment, Dave. I am already setting the default home page to our 'home space'. The problem as Derek points out is that the breadcrumb still provides a link to the dashboard. This makes it hard to build a regular looking website.

For example, Adaptavist does a very nice job of building a real-looking website, but just try clicking on "Dashboard" in the breadcrumb and the illusion is broken!

http://www.adaptavist.com/

Another possibility would be to provide a general configuration as to where the 'home' link goes to. That would actually work really well for us, in that our home page would want to be our marketing site, not the Confluence site. My eventual intention would be to have our whole site hosted in Confluence because it is so much more powerful than what we have right now, but I wouldn't be able to do so while this issue is still open.

Dave -
Setting the space home to a particular page doesn't address the fact that every single breadcrumb list will still start with "Dashboard" which can neither be renamed or disabled.
(I'd love to be wrong and have someone post a way to do so!)

Alternatively, you could set the site home page to be the home page for one of your spaces from the Administration > General Configuration page. Most of what you see on the dashboard has now been converted into macros. There is no reason why you can't slap that stuff onto the home page of a space of your choosing.

Cheers,
Dave

I just came up with an interesting idea. What if the Dashboard was itself a space which was somhow flagged as being special – e.g. 'the home space'. This would behave somewhat like the magic 'Desktop' folder on Windows which is just a regular folder that is treated differently in the explorer. Confluence by default could come with a home page space with just one page that replicates the current dashboard using the dashboard macros.

This would allow the following:

• you could rename the space so that the breadcrumb would start with the name you wanted (e.g. "My Company Home")
• you could edit the content of the home page, have it versioned etc
• you could have child pages of the home page that didn't live in the space
• you could grant edit privileges for the home page now

This seems like it could be a relatively simple change that would allow control of the home page. Since the home page is the first page the user sees this really seems critical. In general, any content that is shown by Confluence should be managed content, it should not be hidden away in Velocity pages!

Andy,

The welcome message (that sits above the list of spaces) is editable via the Administration > General Configuration screen.

As for the spelling of 'favourites', we are in the process of internationalizing Confluence. In the mean time, you can workaround this spelling by finding and editing the favpages.vm file.

Cheers,
Dave

I'm in complete agreement. I would like to have total control over the content of the home page to make it fit my corporate standards. Ideally what is currently the dashboard would be my company's home page, but that isn't close to possible at the moment. I notice that Atlassian doesn't use Confluence for its home page or marketing materials but it could with just a few missing features like this one.

In the meantime is the text that appears on the dashboard editable within Confluence? I expected it to be a piece of content, but even with full admin privileges I haven't found it anywhere. The online help doesn't provide any hints either. At the very least I need to replace the non-US spelling of "favourites".