Menus & Navigation
The sidebar you see is not fixed. Every option on it is a row an administrator can rename, re-order, hide, point somewhere else, or show only to certain groups of people. This page explains that screen and the one idea behind it.
Where to find it
| Screen | Where it lives | What you need |
|---|---|---|
Menus — /admin/menus | Settings → Interface & navigation → Menus | Permission to view menus; changing a row additionally needs permission to manage them |
The one idea: a menu option is shown to groups
A menu row carries no permission of its own. What it carries is a list of permission groups it is shown to — and that list is the only thing that decides whether the option appears on somebody's sidebar.
Access is a separate question, and it is answered somewhere else: at the destination. Every page keeps its own permission gate, so hiding a menu row does not protect a page, and showing one does not grant anything.
The three sections
Rows are grouped by the place they appear in:
| Section | Where those rows appear |
|---|---|
| Main | the main part of the sidebar — the day-to-day pages |
| Administration | the admin cluster in the sidebar, and the cards on the Settings page |
| General | the personal entries (your preferences, help, your own pages), and the My workspace cards on the Settings page |
Each section has its own table listing Label, Key, Path, and Shown to groups, followed by the row's position number. Beside each label, badges say what kind of row it is: System, Disabled, External, View, and Global or This space.
Global rows and this-space rows
Two buttons above the table switch between Global and This space:
- a global row is shared by every space on the system;
- a this space row exists only in the space you are in.
Every row carries a badge saying which it is, so you always know whether a change you are about to make affects one space or all of them. Editing a global row needs the global manage permission, and only an administrator of the whole system holds it in a way that counts — a space's own super-administrator is refused; editing a space row needs the space one, inside a space you administer.
Adding and editing a row
Press + Add menu option to add a row of your own, or press Edit at the end of a row to change it. Both buttons appear only when you may change the rows of the scope you are looking at. The form that opens has these fields:
- Key — the technical name. It is how the system recognises the row. You type it when you add a row; once the row exists it cannot be changed.
- Section — Main, Administration or General: which part of the menu the row belongs to.
- Label — what people read on the sidebar. Required.
- Label i18n key (optional) — the name of a built-in translation for the label, if there is one.
- Label translations (optional) — the label in other languages: press Add translation, type the language code (for example
he) and the translated label; Remove takes a line away. Useful for a custom entry that has no built-in translation. - Type — where the option leads, one of four:
- Dashboard — a widget page, - Page — an ordinary application page at the Path you type, - Virtual table view — a saved table view. Instead of a path you choose the view by its name from the Virtual table (view) list; the form shows its id underneath, and the view opens at /view/<id>. If there are no views yet, the form says There are no virtual tables yet. with a link to Create one on the Views page; if you may not read the list of views, it says so in words instead of showing an empty list, - External link — a link out of the application, at the Path you type.
- Icon — the small picture beside the label. Click it to open a grid of every icon the app has, type in the search box to narrow it by name, and click one (or arrow to it and press Enter). None leaves the row without an icon. A row saved before the picker existed may carry a typed-in symbol that is not one of the icons; the form shows it as Current: … (not in the icon set) and keeps it until you pick another.
- Shown to groups — the group picker. Tick a group to show the option to its members; untick to stop showing it. A row with no group ticked is shown in no menu at all — the table says exactly that where the group list would be: No groups — not shown in any menu.
- Enabled — untick to take the option off the menu without deleting it.
Press Save. If the server refuses the change, its exact words appear in the form — the message is never replaced with a generic one.
Built-in rows cannot be deleted — disable them instead
A row the system ships (marked System) has its key, path, section and type locked — the form says so at the top — and the Delete button is not offered. That is deliberate: deleting one would leave a hole nothing could fill. To take it off the menu, untick Enabled; the row keeps its place and its group attachments, and ticking the box again brings it back exactly as it was.
Rows you added yourself can be deleted with Delete in the form. You are asked to confirm first.
Changing the order
Press Reorder, and a grip appears at the start of each row. Drag a row — or pick it up with the keyboard and move it with the arrow keys — and drop it where you want it. The new order saves immediately and the sidebar follows it. Press Done when you have finished.
Ordering is per section: moving a row inside Administration never disturbs Main.