Is it possible that the editors/pages feature will be added again?
Our company recently decided to use Coda instead of Notion and is in the process of migrating.
Due to this news, I think we need to reconsider whether we should use Coda.
Unfortunately, fortunately, we are still in a situation where payment is pending.
If there’s no chance of that feature returning, I think I’ll have to use Notion again.
We prefer a way for everyone to add pages. So everyone has to become a Doc Maker and then it would be more expensive than Notion.
Thank you for developing this pack.
However, it seems difficult for this pack to be an alternative.
The new page was created fine, but it was impossible to change the title of the created page.
To be honest I’m kind of relieved knowing pages can now only be managed by Doc Makers. They should generate profit or else we won’t have Coda anymore. Just be real, how can you run a doc with 100+ pages that’s accessed and edited by 10+ users real-time, only with $10 a month So yeah, I believe it’s not Coda being greedy.
What about the ability to “show hidden” pages, I think that is something that will be really welcome upgrade? Will that be moved to Doc Makers only? It makes total sense with the changes already made. That would also help a ton with many current workarounds so people don’t accidentally change some background stuff. Also there are always people who “like to see how things work” and then mess up stuff and since option to show hidden pages is there they start poking around xD.
Removing the option (which I guess is not that hard to do) and moving it to Doc Makers, as it should really be, would help a lot. Also would help with hiding some information that is not super sensitive, but still not all people should see, and still needed for doc to work.
No, there is no way to create a page out of template in the API. There is a way to add or append content to a page (that’s new) but I don’t think it will support anything more complicated than some formatted text without objects (i.e. things that can be described with non-extended Markdown)
So technically I can add a function that will create a page with some barebone content, e.g. paragraphs and starter text, but most likely no buttons, tables, formulas etc.
@Kanghee_Lee thanks for the candid feedback. It sounds like you’re already getting some help from the community, but if you’d like to chat more about your use case, I’ll follow up via DM. Would love to hear a bit more about your use case and brainstorm together on a set-up that might work for you.
@Marko_Petrovic “Show hidden pages” will also be a Doc Maker action. Editors will still be able to see the entrypoint (we wanted to keep menus consistent wherever possible), but will need to become a Doc Maker to take the action.
That is actually wonderful news. Did I really miss that, or is not communicated somewhere?
Is it just the option in the menu that will be gone and will pages be accessible if you know the URL or page number, or are they not accessible any longer.
About version history: it should only be available to makers. Docs evolve and you don’t want just any editor to start poking around in some older docs that might reveal info that you would now consider as confidential. Or allow version history to be deleted (at least partially). I know copying a doc would do that too, but that would require, at least for me, to reset my api tokens and outside doc connections and links to forms, etc. etc. Not a great thing to look forward to.
@joost_mineur Glad to hear that this is welcomed news! You can check out the detailed breakdown between Doc Maker vs. Editor roles here. For all existing subscriptions, these changes are effective November 6th (fyi for @Marko_Petrovic too.)
And thanks for those details on accessing version history, good feedback for us to consider.
This is a very bad move. This feels very much like the recent Unity price-change mess-up.
This change will most likely hit small team more than big teams. We’re a small start-up and just trying to establish ourselves, and you’ve effectively just at least tripled (we’re still looking into the damage limitation, so it might get worse) our licencing cost with just 1 month’s notice. Bigger companies will most likely already be on Enterprise licenses. Another thing that bigger companies will also have is more people redundancy, so it will be easier to only have Doc Maker licenses for the people who’s job it is to be a Doc Maker. However, in small teams it’s quite common that more people have elevated access to various systems, just so we don’t have single-points-of-failure, e.g. in case of vacation and illness. There might only just be 2 “real” Doc Makers, but a number of backup people, who are also allowed to make changes in case of vacation or illness, even though they seldom use those rights.
This is a fundamental change in the value proposition with just 1 month’s notice, the absolute smallest you could legally get away with. This sends exactly the same signal was Unity did: we’re willing to change the pricing model and license agreement at a moment’s notice, so now you can’t be sure that we won’t just do it again. Basically we can’t trust that your pricing will stay predictable.
The historical argument that editor used to be able to do far less, because the product was less advanced back then is quite honestly irrelevant. Many of your users didn’t evaluate your value proposition based on what the product was able to do years ago; we looked at what it can do now. That’s what you’re changing.
It’s very dishonest to follow that up with saying that “What’s not changing. You only pay for Doc Makers, Editors are free.”. That’s only technically true, since you’ve just (a) changed what it means to be an editor, and (b) showed that you are willing to make those changes at minimal notice, so we shouldn’t feel safe at all. This really shows that you fully understand the impact of this change and just want to hide it.
I don’t know where you get the “<5% of current Editors needing Doc Maker access” from, but I highly doubt that it’s telling the full story. If the impact was really that small, would it actually have been financially worth it, given the predictable backlash.
This honestly feels like deja vu to the Unity licensing changes. (a) You’re changing the licensing models retroactively, (b) you’re doing it on very short notice, so people don’t have a change to adjust, (c) you’re claiming that almost no-one will be affected while in fact hitting small teams disproportionally hard, and (d) you’re clearly signalling that you can’t be trusted not to make more significant changes in the future.
We can all understand the need to make more money. Honestly, times are tough for everyone, so everyone is tightening their grip. But this is not the way to do it, if you want people to keep trusting you. There’s a number of things you could have done differently to make it better.
Just don’t make the change retroactive. No one would have blinked, if you had just kept new features from editors. That way people will still get exactly what they paid for, while you could still make the Doc Makers increasing more valuable. But it would be a choice for us when it’s worth upgrading, not something you force down our throats after we have trusted you with all our data.
You could have made changes to targeted medium to large customers instead, e.g. you could have added a maximum Editor-to-Doc Maker ratio, so medium-sized companies would be asked to pay once they’ve grown a certain size.
You could have given us a longer notice period. It would still be a bad change, but at least teams would have time to calculate the impact and potentially give people a change to migrate their data, if it gets too expensive. With just 1 month’s notice, we don’t have that option.
I strongly urge you to reconsider this approach.
And finally, please stop ramming the AI bullshit down our throats. It’s very annoying to constantly be interrupted by AI dialog boxes when you’re in the middle of writing. We get that you’re totally and absolutely god-smacked in love with ChatGPT and can’t think straight, but please allow the rest of us the option to not drown in the AI hype-train. The whole world don’t need to stuffed into a damn LLM.
Totally agree, this is a deal breaker for me, so long Coda…
I was about to switch from Confluence to Coda specifically for the fact than one doc maker can invite unlimited Editors and as well the fact that they can create pages.
I join Martin’s opinion about the AI bullshit…
You just killed your business model by releasing such restrictions on Editors.
We were on the path to move all the company documents to Coda, but this limitation on creating pages is making us to reconsider that decision. I wonder if there isn’t another way to keep Coda sustainable and keep editors creating pages. Maybe billing AI users could be an alternative.
Over the years I have checked so many different tools and environments. The last 5 years I have used Coda on a daily basis. I started out with the free plan and after a couple of days (or weeks, I don’t remember for sure) I switched to the team plan because the extra’s in the teamplan were absolutely worth the small price you pay for such a phenomenal tool.
Some of my tables tend to be a bit big (way over 10K rows) and my documents contain a lof of files. Not only that, I have many independent docs (projects) for my own use, I have made some app-like docs for family and friends too. And all of that within my own subscription.
My largest doc is used by our team (20 people) and it works flawless. If someone would need a new blanco page I will make it for them and from there on they can do whatever they want with it. I understand that not everyone likes this approach - but if it is not worth the extra maker seat - the little extra effort is a small price to pay.
I don’t know of any tool that offers so much storage, users (editors), projects (documents) at such a tiny small price.
Maybe Coda can setup a pricing model with a discount for small teams (like 4 makers for $100 per month), but even at 36 per month per maker you already have a super deal.
So, sorry to see some people go, but please know that in my opinion Coda is offering the best deal in this segment of tools.
The above is my opinion and my only ties to Coda are as a maker and supporter of this product.
I don’t see it as a deal breaker because you can always create a table with Canva-like columns where editors can add rows and edit them as they like.
The Canva-like column can be almost as rich as a page, and it helps keep the document structured.
The way I see Coda is not like a word document but more like a rich app document. Adding pages is akin to adding sections of an app, which is what document architects do (document makers).
If you need a solution that is less like an app and more like notes or word documents, there’s Notion. However, again, it has a different pricing structure and can become expensive for larger teams.
In my opinion, the fewer people understand how Coda’s document logic works, the more they will be upset about this change because they are thinking in terms of Google Docs, Word Docs, or note-taking app logic. And if they do, yes, it’s a deal breaker with this mindset.
So yeah, I believe it’s not Coda being greedy.
there’s the Rename Page action where you select the created page and can set a new title.