JIRA 4.3 : Configuring Renderers
This page last changed on Mar 08, 2011 by gnedel.
On this page: OverviewJIRA renderers affect the display of a field's content, enabling you to choose a style which best suits your organisation and you users. JIRA currently ships with the following renderers:
Renderers are configured on a per field basis. To configure a renderer for a particular field, see 'Specifying Field Behaviour'. Note that you can configure the same field differently for different projects and issue types — see 'Associating Field Behaviour with Issue Types'. Renderers are implemented as JIRA plugins, meaning that any renderer can be easily added to or removed from use within JIRA. This includes any custom renderers that may be developed. For details see 'Configuring Renderers' (below). Please read Implications for JIRA operations below before configuring renderers.
Renderable FieldsPotentially any field within JIRA can be a renderable field, but this only really makes sense in the case of text-based fields (for the Default Text Renderer and the Wiki Style Renderer) and multi-select fields (for the Autocomplete Renderer and the Select List Rendered). The following table shows the JIRA fields that are renderable out-of-the-box:
Renderer TypesJIRA ships with the following renderers:
Default Text RendererThe Default Text Renderer renders a field's content as plain text, with the following additional auto-linking feature: if the text contains text that resolves to a JIRA issue key then an HTML link will be generated that points to that issue. Below is a sample of how some description text looks when rendered through the Default Text Renderer.
Wiki Style RendererThe Wiki Style Renderer allows a user to enter wiki markup to produce html content, as described in 'Editing Rich-Text Fields' in the JIRA User's Guide. This renderer uses the Confluence wiki renderer engine and therefore uses the Confluence wiki notation. The Confluence notation is easy to learn and allows for:
Wiki Style Renderer Macro SupportThe Wiki Style Renderer supports pluggable macros in the same way that Confluence does. Macros provide an easy and powerful extension point to the wiki markup language. JIRA ships with a number of macros as described in the JIRA User's Guide.
Autocomplete RendererThe Autocomplete Renderer allows the user to start typing text which is then 'autocompleted', or to select from a drop-down list of options: Select List RendererThe Select List Renderer provides a drop-down list of options: Implications for JIRA operationsThe fact that JIRA allows you to configure different renderers across different projects/issue types for the same field has implications for bulk operations. Also, since the Wiki Style Renderer inherently creates HTML as its end product, there are implications as to how this will behave when issue data is viewed outside JIRA's web front-end. Bulk MoveWhen performing a bulk move operation you can either move issues to an environment (project/issue type) where the renderer types for the fields are the same or where they will be different. If the renderer types for where you are moving to are the same then you will not notice any changes to the way the issues data is displayed once the move has occurred and the move operation will not prompt the user with any warnings. When bulk moving issues to an environment (project/issue type) that has a different renderer type defined for one of the fields being affected by the move, if any of the issues have a non empty value associated with the field, the move operation will present the user with a warning so that you can be aware of the change. The warning does not affect the move operation in any way but it is there to alert you to the fact that the moved issues' affected fields may look different in their new project/issue type. This is best illustrated with an example. Let's say you have project 'A' which is configured to use the Atlassian Wiki Renderer for the Description field. Let's say you also have a project 'B' which is configured to use the Default Text Renderer for the Description field. You have three issues that exist in project 'A' and you want to perform a bulk move of the three issues to project 'B'. If none of the issues in project 'A' have a value set for the Description field they will be moved and you will not notice any changes since there is no value to render. If one of the issues has the following value in its Description: {color:green}green text{color} *this is a test issue* You would be presented with this screen in the bulk move to alert you that you are changing renderers as a result of the move: The move operation does nothing to affect the data itself so after the move the wiki markup will display through the Default Text Renderer. In our example the before and after look like this: Bulk EditWhen performing a bulk edit operation the only renderable fields you may be able to bulk edit are instances of the Text Field, and Free Text Field (unlimited text) custom fields. The bulk edit operation does not allow you to bulk edit the description, environment, or comment fields. You will only be allowed to bulk edit a renderable field if all the issues selected for edit use the same renderer type. If the renderer type differs for any of the selected issues you will be presented with an error message. This is best illustrated with an example. Let's say you have two global custom fields, 'Custom text area' and 'Custom text field', whose types are as their names imply. Let's say you have project 'A' which is configured to use the Atlassian Wiki Renderer for both of the fields. Lets say you also have a project 'B' which is configured to use the Default Text Renderer for the 'Custom text area' field and the Atlassian Wiki Renderer for the 'Custom text field'. Let's also say that you have one issue in each project. If you were to perform a bulk edit operation on the two issues in these projects you will be presented with the screenshot below:
Email NotificationsJIRA allows for extensive configuration in relation to email notifications. JIRA can be send out two types of emails, HTML and text (see 'Email Formatting'). HTML EmailsWhen using the Atlassian Wiki Renderer, the rendered content (i.e. exactly what you see on the 'View Issue' page) will be sent out in the emails. This will create emails which are as rich as the content makes it. If using the Atlassian Wiki Renderer this is the preferred type of email since it is a real representation of the wiki markup. Text EmailsWhen using the Atlassian Wiki Renderer, the actual wiki markup (unrendered) will be displayed in text emails for fields that use the Atlassian Wiki Renderer. This is obviously less readable than the rendered version of the markup, but because the markup's syntax is quite simple the text does remain easy to read. Excel ViewJIRA allows the Issue Navigator view to be exported to an Excel spreadsheet. If any of the fields being exported to Excel are using the Atlassian Wiki Renderer, the value exported to the cell in Excel will be the original wiki markup. Attempting to display complex HTML within a cell in Excel adds rows and columns that make using the data for formulas very difficult.
RSS/XML ViewJIRA allows the Issue Navigator view to be exported to RSS/XML. If a field is using the Default Text Renderer its values will be exported in a CDATA section within the generated XML. If a field is using the Atlassian Wiki Renderer, its rendered value will be XML escaped and included in the generated XML. If the XML view is being used as an RSS feed, most RSS readers will render the generated HTML so you will see the rich content within your RSS reader. If you would like to have this view feed out the raw values (unrendered) then you can send an additional request parameter 'rssMode=raw'. If the original link looks like this: http://localhost:8080/browse/AAA-1?decorator=none&view=rss Then the URL to have the raw values placed inside a CDATA should look like this: http://localhost:8080/browse/AAA-1?decorator=none&view=rss&rssMode=raw OtherThis section describes other issues to be aware of in relation to the renderers.
Configuring RenderersApplying a Renderer to a FieldTo enable a renderer for a particular field, edit the Field Configuration and choose the appropriate renderer for the field. For details, see Specifying Field Behaviour. Enabling a Renderer PluginRenderers within JIRA are implemented as JIRA plugins. The macros that the Wiki Style Renderer uses are also implemented as JIRA plugins. For general information on plugins please see the JIRA Plugin Guide.
Renderer Plugins ConfigurationRenderers and their dependant components, except for the default text renderer, can be enabled/disabled via the plugin administration menus. If you navigate, as an administrator, to 'Administration' > 'Plugins' and then click on the option 'Renderer Plugin' you will see the following screen.
From this screen you will see all the configured Renderers within JIRA. At the moment only two renderers exist but if more are created you will see there configuration here. If you click on the 'Disable Module' link for the 'Wiki Style Renderer' this will deactivate the renderer for the entire instance of JIRA.
Macro Plugins Configuration - Wiki Style RendererThe macros used by the Wiki Style Renderer can be enabled/disabled via the plugin administration menus. If you navigate, as an administrator, to 'Administration' > 'Plugins' and then click on the option 'Wiki Renderer Macros Plugin' you will see the following screen.
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Document generated by Confluence on Mar 27, 2011 18:34 |