The discussion revolves around the development of a native sidebar system in Discourse, driven by user demand and the need for a more integrated solution. merefield highlights the existing reliance on plugins and theme components for sidebar functionality, noting the redundancy of reinventing solutions. They reference the Custom Layouts Plugin as a flexible option that supports widget integration and customization, which has been well-received. codinghorror expresses interest in broader UI customization, including headers and footers, as part of the setup process. sam confirms that a native sidebar is now official, with a design in progress to transition the current “hamburger” menu into an on-demand sidebar (Sideburger), expected to ship in 3–6 months. The feature is now live, with an overview available at this link.
I’ve noticed there’s a lot of demand for sidebars.
Just take a look at Search results for 'category:feature sidebar' - Discourse Meta
We’ve already got a lot of plugin and Theme Component choices, but now we’ve deleted the Category column, wouldn’t it be nice if this was native and provided plugin outlets in the native sidebar(s), so adding widgets would be super easy?
There’s currently a lot of ‘reinventing the wheel’ going on
That is a good idea, but I am more interested in header and footer choices being a part of setup wizard in 2.3 cc @Johani
Pavilion has been happy to fill the gap here and has since released: Layouts Plugin
Whilst there are many standalone, specific purpose sidebar addons what makes our system special is the level of flexibility and customisation.
This has our full support and there is an ever growing list of compatible widgets that all follow the same standard so can be laid out as the administrator desires.
There’s also a guide on how to create your own.
Note we have a plan to ship sidebar concepts as core components, one big change will be transitioning today’s “hamburger” to an on-demand sidebar. aka. (Sideburger) … @awesomerobot is working on the system design. We expect to ship in the next 3-6 months.
Sidebar is now official and shipped !