# Messages section for sidebar

**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/messages-section-for-sidebar/389664
**Category:** Theme component
**Tags:** sidebar
**Created:** [November 26, 2025, 12:04am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/messages-section-for-sidebar/389664 "2025-11-26T00:04:37Z")
**Posts on this page:** 1
**Showing post:** 13

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### Author: ![nathank](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/nathank/32/290039_2.png) [@nathank](https://meta.discourse.org/u/nathank)
#### Post date: [December 9, 2025, 1:02am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/messages-section-for-sidebar/389664/13 "2025-12-09T01:02:38Z")

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> [@Moin](#):
>
> I have thought about this, about which route is a better default and a setting, but I removed it for some reason I don’t remember right now. I will take a look ~~tomorrow~~ later. I think it was about the unread message indicator. Would you still prefer this route if the consequence was that there would be no indicator for unread messages?

I’ve been mucking about with this in [my fork](https://github.com/nathan-nz/sidebar-messages-section), and have found the same thing. It works, but loses both the unread message indicator and the link highlighting on the sidebar. Both those things are indeed high value!

I’ve done a PR for where I got up to:

[https://github.com/moin-Jana/sidebar-messages-section/pull/1](https://github.com/moin-Jana/sidebar-messages-section/pull/1)

But to really fly, it really needs the unread indicator and the link highlighting to work, eh?

> [@Moin](#):
>
> There is already a great component about changing the order of sections in the sidebar: [Navigation (sidebar) menu display control](https://meta.discourse.org/t/navigation-sidebar-menu-display-control/277687)

Point well made! That is a much better idea. To my shame, I’m actually one of the authors of that TC!

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