Crafter Studio Sidebar Plugin Example

Let’s take a look at an example of creating a Sidebar plugin in Studio using a project called My Editorial created using the Website Editorial blueprint.

  1. The first thing we have to do is to create the folder structure where we will be placing the JS file for our sidebar project plugin. We’ll follow the convention listed in UI Plugin Directory Structure. For our example, CATEGORY is sidebar and the NAME is react-sample

    In a local folder, create the descriptor file for your project plugin craftercms-plugin.yaml with the plugin.id set to org.craftercms.plugin.examplesidebar, then create the following folder structure:

    Sidebar Plugin Directory Structure
    <plugin-folder>/
  craftercms-plugin.yaml
  authoring/
    static-assets/
      plugins/
        org/
          craftercms/
            plugin/
              examplesidebar/
                sidebar/
                  reaact-sample/

    We will be placing the JS file implementing the toolbar project plugin under the react-sample folder For our example, the <plugin-folder> is located here: /users/myuser/myplugins/sidebar-plugin

  2. We’ll create the JavaScript file for our plugin by following the instructions in the plugin example here which will generate the index.js file.

    Inside the react-sample folder, create two empty files, index.css and script.js, and place the index.js file in it.

  3. To setup our sidebar project plugin to be automatically wired in the corresponding configuration file in Studio (which for a sidebar, is the User Interface Configuration file) during the installation, add the following to your craftercms-plugin.yaml descriptor file

    craftercms-plugin.yaml
     1installation:
 2  - type: preview-app
 3    parentXpath: //widget[@id='craftercms.components.ToolsPanel']
 4    elementXpath: //plugin[@id='org.craftercms.sampleSidebarPlugin.components.reactComponent']
 5    element:
 6      name: configuration
 7      children:
 8      - name: widgets
 9        children:
10        - name: widget
11          attributes:
12          - name: id
13            value: org.craftercms.sampleSidebarPlugin.components.reactComponent
14          children:
15          - name: plugin
16            attributes:
17            - name: id
18              value: org.craftercms.plugin.examplesidebar
19            - name: type
20              value: sidebar
21            - name: name
22              value: react-sample
23            - name: file
24              value: index.js

    Remember to use the same value used in plugin.id (found at the top of the descriptor file) for the installation section plugin.id which for our example is org.craftercms.plugin

  4. After placing your plugin files and setting up auto-wiring, the project plugin may now be installed for testing/debugging using the crafter-cli command copy-plugin.

    Sidebar project plugin directory/files

    When running a crafter-cli command, the connection to CrafterCMS needs to be setup via the add-environment command. Once the connection has been established, we can now install the plugin to the project my-editorial by running the following:

    ./crafter-cli copy-plugin -e local -s my-editorial --path /users/myuser/myplugins/sidebar-plugin

  5. Let’s take a look at our plugin in action by clicking on the CrafterCMS logo at the top left of your browser to open the sidebar:

    Sidebar project plugin in action

    Here’s the auto-wired section in the configuration after installing the plugin:

     1<siteUi>
 2  <widget id="craftercms.components.ToolsPanel">
 3    <configuration>
 4    <widgets>
 5      <widget id="craftercms.components.ToolsPanelEmbeddedAppViewButton">
 6         <configuration>
 7            <title id="words.dashboard" defaultMessage="Dashboard"/>
 8            <icon id="@mui/icons-material/DashboardRounded"/>
 9            <widget id="craftercms.components.Dashboard"/>
10         </configuration>
11      </widget>
12      <widget id="craftercms.components.ToolsPanelPageButton">
13         <configuration>
14            <title id="previewSiteExplorerPanel.title" defaultMessage="Site Explorer"/>
15            <icon id="craftercms.icons.SiteExplorer"/>
16         ...
17      </widget>
18      <widget id="craftercms.components.ToolsPanelPageButton">
19         <permittedRoles>
20            <role>admin</role>
21            <role>developer</role>
22         </permittedRoles>
23         <configuration>
24            <title id="siteTools.title" defaultMessage="Project Tools"/>
25            <icon id="@mui/icons-material/TuneRounded"/>
26            <widgets>
27               <widget id="craftercms.components.SiteToolsPanel"/>
28            </widgets>
29         </configuration>
30      </widget>
31      <widget id="org.craftercms.sampleSidebarPlugin.components.reactComponent">
32         <plugin id="org.craftercms.plugin"
33                 type="sidebar"
34                 name="react-sample"
35                 file="index.js"/>
36      </widget>
37    </widgets>
38  </configuration>
39</widget>
40...