In a Dev category thread titled Hamburger-categories widget does not mount?, Andrew_Dickens reports that while mounting hamburger-menu works, hamburger-categories fails despite following Discourse’s beginner theme guide. merefield initially suspects sidebar settings but later identifies the issue: the hamburger-categories widget expects a categories argument, which the footer outlet doesn’t provide 13. awesomerobot confirms the guide is misleading and provides a fix: {{mount-widget widget="hamburger-categories" args=(hash categories=this.site.categories)}} 19, which Andrew_Dickens confirms works. The discussion also reveals outdated documentation: using Discourse.SiteSettings triggers a deprecation warning 20; awesomerobot advises using api.container.lookup('site-settings:main') instead 21. Andrew_Dickens expresses concern about building a custom Discourse plugin for a client, given the outdated docs. awesomerobot acknowledges the guides need updating due to ongoing Ember upgrades, with no firm timeline. The thread highlights that mounting widgets requires understanding their internal data dependencies — not just their names — and that developers should rely on browser console logs and modern Ember practices.
Following the docs here Developing Discourse Themes & Theme Components
The example using the log works fine but when I update the widget to
{{mount-widget widget="hamburger-categories"}}
Nothing comes out… I’ve run through the list at https://github.com/discourse/discourse/tree/main/app/assets/javascripts/discourse/app/widgets. and some widgets show some don’t?
Eventually i want to use just the categories list as buttons inside a custom header, like this…
I had it set to “Header Dropdown” I changed it to “Legacy” but same issue
The hamburger menu shows, but I am after just the categories
{{mount-widget widget="hamburger-menu"}}
Apologies I was thrown by the widget name. What plugin outlet are you using?
the same as in the docs
<script type="text/x-handlebars" data-template-name="/connectors/below-footer/fancy-footer">
<div class="footer">
<div class="wrap">
<p>before mounting a widget</p>
{{mount-widget widget="home-logo"}}
{{mount-widget widget="hamburger-categories"}}
<p>after mounting a widget</p>
</div>
</div>
</script>
theme is here GitHub - Manifesto-Digital/bcn-discourse-theme · GitHub I tried it on https://discourse.theme-creator.io/. and problem remains
If you look at the guide you can see the plugin outlet takes an attribute showFooter. That’s probably false. Meaning that neither the footer nor the attached widget will show.
In any case why a footer outlet for a header artefact?
Use the plugin outlets theme component to pick a better location imho.
It does show… it shows widget=“home-logo”
and it also shows widget=“hamburger-menu”
but it doesn’t show widget=“hamburger-categories”
Just testing it out, doesn’t really matter where it is right now
Any errors in the console?
What shows in the inspector?
My guess is this is the problem:
There’s no attribute categories being passed via the footer outlet
but when i use widget=“hamburger-menu” in the footer outlet it shows the categories
I’ve tried other outlets around the page and problem persists
Had you posted that error message initially it would have saved a lot of time.
Always look at the console.
You may need to attach this one with JavaScript once you have retrieved the list of Categories in the same way the Hamburger menu does it.
yeah definitely and even more time if the documentation didn’t say “Now, mounting a widget is pretty simple, all you need to know is the widget’s name. That’s it”
Yeah my hunch is that guide is out of date?
Do you know where I can find the most up to date guide, I’m flying around in here trying to find answers but landing on posts that are 4 years old. Is there an actual guide document somewhere?
Yeah I can see how that would be misleading… technically it does mount the widget, but that doesn’t mean the data required by the widget is automatically available.
You can try passing the categories into the widget this way:
{{mount-widget widget="hamburger-categories" args=(hash categories=this.site.categories)}}
Great thanks.. yes that makes sense and is showing now
As we are here talking about logging in the console
When following the docs Developing Discourse Themes & Theme Components
When i try
<script type="text/discourse-plugin" version="0.8">
console.log(Discourse)
</script>
I’m not sure I get a “global object to the console”, I get a class
And if i try something like
<script type="text/discourse-plugin" version="0.8">
const settings = Discourse.SiteSettings;
console.log(settings)
</script>
I get this error
THEME 6 'BCN Theme - watched locally'] Deprecation notice: use injected siteSettings instead of Discourse.SiteSettings