Improve Confluence shortcut key indicator for non English translations

Problem Definition

Confluence provides a set of shortcut keys for specific actions. Those letters are underlined in their prospective button Test, for example (e) for +E+diting a page/blog.
This is not working well when using Confluence in different languages. The shortcut keys are still the same (which is expected.) However, the word is different and sometimes does not contain that letter that matches the shortcut key. Instead we underline the first letter of that word and this could be misleading and confusing for the users. Sometimes multiple words will have the same letter underlined because they start with the same letter.

Suggested Solution

The suggested solution is to remove the underline from those words for non English translations or allow the admins to configure this if needed.

Workaround

The current workaround illustrates how you can either completely remove the underline or change it to a letter(s) of your liking. Here's how you can do it:

1. Stop Confluence
2. Locate the following jar file <confluence-install>/confluence/WEB-INF/bundled-plugins/confluence-language-pack-xx_XX-y.y.y.some-alphanumeric-plus-some-date.jar where xx and XX are the language ISO codes and y.y.y is the latest Confluence release version that shipped these translations by default. For example:

   confluence-language-pack-de_DE-6.3.0.beta2-v2r13658-2017-06-19.jar
   

3. Take a copy of this jar file
4. Unzip the jar file
5. For this example we will focus on the action when viewing a page: Edit, Save for Later and Watch for the German language
6. Lookup for the following values in the prospective files:
   Edit - com/atlassian/confluence/core/ConfluenceActionSupport_de_DE.properties

   navlink.edit={0}B{1}earbeiten
   

   Save for later - com/atlassian/confluence/core/ConfluenceActionSupport_de_DE.properties

   pagemenu.favourite={0}F{1}avorit
   pagemenu.unfavourite={0}F{1}avorit l\u00F6schen
   

   Watch - com/atlassian/confluence/plugins/watch/i18n_de_DE.properties

   confluence.watch.start.button={0}B{1}eobachten
   confluence.watch.stop.button={0}B{1}eobachtung
   

7. You can modify the underlined letter by surrounding it with

   {0}A{1}bcdefgh
   

8. You can also choose to not underline anything, then you can remove the surrounding {0} and {1}
9. Save the file
10. Update the jar file with the new saved files
11. Clear Confluence plugin cache
12. Start Confluence

The new changes will now be visible to the users.