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Customizing sidebar

This article explains how to customize the appearance of the sidebar next to an entry in the web app and Contentful apps.

Overview

The sidebar has a default configuration, which specifies which widgets will appear in it. This configuration can be edited to remove or reposition built-in widgets, and to add custom apps.

The sidebar is:

  • configured on a content type level and stored in its editor_interface
  • a list of built-in widgets and apps
  • each widget and app can only be used once per sidebar
  • supports setting instance parameters for apps

Default sidebar

The default sidebar is the initial state for all content types. It consists of six built-in widgets:

  • Publish & Status: Shows and changes the status of an entry
  • Preview: Connects content to a custom preview application
  • Links: Lists all incoming links to the current entry
  • Translation: Toggles which locales to show
  • Versions: Access to the snapshots of an entry
No support in Compose
Built-in widgets are currently not supported in Compose. Only apps are visible in the sidebar.

Creating a custom sidebar

To override the default sidebar of a content type, navigate to the content model, select a content type and click on Sidebar as seen in the screenshot below:

editing a custom sidebar

Every content type starts with the default sidebar configuration. You are free to reorder and remove the widgets. For demo purposes, let's move the Versions widget to the top of the list and remove all widgets except Publish & Status. The sidebar editor should then look like this:

editing a custom sidebar by re-ordering widgets

After saving the content type, navigate to the entry editor opening an entry of the content type you just changed. It should now look like this:

rendering a custom sidebar

Note that the top widget is the Versions widget followed by the Publish & Status widget.

Using Apps in a custom sidebar

The sidebar editor lists all Apps on the left column. Once an App has been assigned to a sidebar, the Change instance parameters can be used to set instance parameters.

UI Extensions in the sidebar

Resources