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Take a 3-minute quiz to learn which tool, native inline comments or the Talk add-on, best suits your needs.

The Talk add-on and Confluence 5.7 native inline comments have some similar features in commonsimilarities. However, Talk’s functionality is a lot richer and more various than the one of Confluence native inline comments.Talk’s unique features are very useful, some of them are indispensableincludes a number of unique useful features. And we continue working on making Talk the tool that is much a more powerful and flexible than native inline commentstool. Because as a professional using Confluence, you need advanced features. And it’s our objective to provide you with them to and help you be more efficient with less efforts.We believe settling for limited functionality impairs collaboration in Confluence

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Comparison: Talk add-on

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and Confluence

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native inline comments

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Talk
id talk-295

 

Feature

   

Talk add-on

   

for Confluence

Confluence

5.7

native inline comments	Notes
Creating inline comments by just pointing to the paragraph you refer to

 

With bigger fragments of text it’s so much easier to just point to a paragraph to comment it.

Talk
id talk-284

Talk allows that in view mode. With Confluence native inline comments you are supposed to highlight the whole text fragment.

Creating inline comments by selecting a text fragment

Talk doesn't support adding inline comments to the highlighted text. It has another concept.

As an option, with Talk you can add an inline comment by selecting a text fragment in View mode. Once saved, a talk is added after the selected text snippet, the text you've commented stops being highlighted. It allows you to preserve context and avoid your page being overloaded with disturbing colorful highlights. Learn more Confluence native inline comments work by adding inline comments to a selected text fragment

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with preserving highlighting after adding an inline comment.

Adding, viewing, managing, replying to inline comments in 'edit' mode

Setting up permissions for specific comments

 

You can set up Space Permissions for inline comments for both, Talk and Confluence inline comments. But Talk is more flexible, as with Talk you can also

	With Talk you can add inline comments anywhere on your page in 'edit' mode, as well as view, manage, reply to Talk comments while editing a page. With Confluence native inline comments you can’t do that in 'edit' mode.
Setting default Space comments viewing permissions			With Talk you can set default space viewing permissions applied to all the talks created within the space. Expand title Read more Use it, for example, to have by default: comments and discussions on your public pages visible only to the users of your company and hidden from external viewers. hidden from some of your team members (teams), who have the 'View All' permission for the current space. only one user with Talk viewing permissions in this space (to create private notes). Learn more In Confluence, you can give a user permissions to delete or add comments (including inline comments), but there's no way to restrict viewing comments to users with the 'View All' permission. It gives no solution for the case when certain users or groups should be able to view all of the available page content but for inline comments.
Setting permissions for specific comments			With Talk you can very easily configure individual permissions for any separate comment on your page

very easily

while adding or editing that comment.

Expand

* Simple set up of permissions for specific comments while adding or editing comments: Talk id talk-293 It's a must-have feature when you want to hide a couple of private comments from users and groups that have Space comments viewing Permissions. Or when you create 2 comments for 2 different groups that both have Space comments viewing Permissions; and each of the two groups is not supposed to see the comment you created for the other one. If you want to know more about managing permissions, please, follow this link.

Learn more You can't do it for specific Confluence native inline comments. Since page's viewing is either restricted together with all of its content or a user can view a page with all of its content (including all of the inline comments). Not very convenient when you need different permissions for different comments on your page.
Report with all inline comments			With Talk you can create reports that give you an overview of all inline comments. It's helpful to track the resolution of discussions. Learn more The report feature is not available in Confluence native inline comments.
Suggesting changes on a page			Talk comes with Suggestions – you can suggest changes on a page and let page owners decide whether to accept them. Accepted changes are automatically applied (no need to edit the page). While rejected suggestions disappear and can be tracked in page history. Confluence native inline comments don't have this feature at the moment.

Whilewith Confluence native inline comments you can set only Space Permissions for inline comments. They automatically apply to all the inline comments of the Space, not very convenient when you need different permissions for different comments in your Space.

Viewing all inline comments of the page at the same time

on the right-hand sidebar 

 

 

 

With Talk inline comments are displayed in 'view' mode on the right-hand sidebar

ALL AT ONCE

all at once. You can expand the sidebar

and

, go through all the comments and

discussion

collapse it once you're done. Talk comments are also displayed to the right of the page content in 'edit' mode. Reviewing and editing your pages

and

; finding needed comments is very convenient with this Talk feature. With Confluence native inline comments are displayed in view mode on the right-hand sidebar only

ONE

one inline comment

AT A TIME.Navigating to previous/next inline comments

Talk
id talk-292

at a time.
Collapsing of long comments and discussions			Talk has automatic collapsing of long comments and discussions. And you can use the 'Show less' and 'Show more' buttons to collapse and expand long comments. Learn more Long Confluence native inline comments and threads don't collapse.
Marking discussions as favourites			Talk allows you to mark discussions as favourites. You can also see and manage all your favourite Talk discussions from all spaces on one page in your profile. Learn more Confluence native inline comments don't have a similar feature.
Prioritizing discussions			Talk allows you to set priorities for discussions. Learn more Confluence native inline comments don't have a similar feature.
Navigating to the previous/next inline comment			For navigation between Talk discussions, you can use arrows in the top left corner of an active thread, as well as arrows that are always in the middle of the screen on the right (near the Talk sidebar toggling button). Learn more It's possible to navigate betweenConfluence native inline comments by pressing arrows in an active thread

Talk optionally displays all inline comments of the page at the same time instead and might have navigation later. Confluence 5.7 has the "navigation between inline comments"feature

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Archiving comments and restoring archived comments			With Confluence native inline comments you can delete or resolve comments, but not archive them. While with Talk you can not only remove, but also archive your comments. Expand title Read more It works great in cases when you have comments you need to come back to in a week or a month.

Talk add-on vs Confluence 5.7 native inline comments

Why overload your page with them hanging there for so long, if you can take them out of your sight and restore later. Once you archive Talk inline comment, your comment becomes marked as “archived”, it continues to exist on the page, but it is no longer shown. Learn more
Restore removed (aka resolved) threads		Partially	With Talk it’s possible to resolve threads by removing or archiving them. You can restore both removed and archived threads. Learn more With Confluence native inline comments you can either delete or resolve threads. While the resolved ones can be restored, you can’t restore the deleted threads.If you delete them by mistake or for some reason need to get intentionally deleted threads back, you can’t do that. They are gone for good.
Updating discussions in real time

 

 

 

Partially

 

With Talk if you are having a discussion with someone on the page using Talk, your discussion is being updated in real time; and you can see new comments in this discussion right away. This feature is essential for real time discussions using inline comments. With Confluence native inline comments you only get

informed

workbox notifications about new comments and have to click “Show me” every time, as there’s no real time refreshing of discussions.

Add inline comments in edit mode

Working with comments of included pages and excerpts

 

Talk
id talk-288

 

With Talk you can add inline comments ANYWHERE on your page in edit mode.

With Confluence native inline comments you can’t add inline comments in edit mode.

Restore removed (aka deleted, resolved) comments

 

Partially

 

With Talk it’s possible to delete/resolve comments by removing or archiving them. You can restore both removed*** and archived comments.

With Confluence native inline comments you can either delete or resolve comments. While you can restore resolved Confluence native inline comments, you can’t restore the deleted ones.If you delete them by mistake or for some reason need to get intentionally deleted comments back, you can’t so that. They are gone for good.

 

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Talk
id talk-293

It's a must-have feature when you want to hide a couple of private comments from users and groups that have Space comments viewing Permissions.

Or when you create 2 comments for 2 different groups that both have Space comments viewing Permissions; and each of the two groups is not supposed to see the comment you created for the other one.

If you want to know more about managing permissions, please, follow this link.

 

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It works great in cases when you have comments you need to come back to in a week or a month. Why overload your page with them hanging there for so long, if you can take them out of your sight and restore later.

Once you archive Talk inline comment, your comment becomes marked as “archived”, it continues to exist on the page, but it is no longer shown. If you want to know more about archiving and restoring archived comments, please, follow this link.

 

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	When using the Include Page or Excerpt Include macros to include e.g. the Page B (or a segment of the Page B) in the Page A, you can view and work (edit, reply, remove, archive, restore archived, set permissions) with Talk comments of the Page B on the Page A. You can also add new Talk comments to the contents of the Include Page or Excerpt Include macros in the view mode. But you won't be able to view the Confluence native inline comments of the Page B on the Page A.
Picking colors for discussions			With Talk you can change the background color of your inline comments to prioritize discussions, distinguish discussions made by users from different teams, etc. Confluence native inline comments don't offer this capability at the moment.
Seeing the number of inline discussions on a page			The Talk settings button that is located on the top on a Confluence page shows the number of Talk discussions on a page. Such a counter of inline comments is not available in Confluence native inline comments

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