Strapi v4 - Navigation plugin

Create consumable navigation with a simple and straightforward visual builder

Strapi Navigation Plugin provides a website navigation / menu builder feature for Strapi Headless CMS admin panel. Navigation has the possibility to control the audience and can be consumed by the website with different output structure renderers:

• Flat
• Tree (nested)
• RFR (ready for handling by Redux First Router)

Table of Contents

1. ✨ Features
2. ⏳ Installation
3. 🖐 Requirements
4. 🔧 Basic Configuration
   • Settings page
   • Plugin file
5. 🔧 GraphQL Configuration
6. 🌍 i18n Internationalization
7. 👤 RBAC
8. 🔐 Authorization strategy
9. 🕸️ Public API specification
   • REST API
   • GraphQL API
10. 🔌 Extensions
11. 🌿 Model lifecycle hooks
12. 🧩 Examples
13. 💬 FAQ
14. 🤝 Contributing
15. 👨‍💻 Community support

✨ Features

• Navigation Public API: Simple and ready for use API endpoint for consuming the navigation structure you've created
• Visual builder: Elegant and easy to use visual builder
• Any Content Type relation: Navigation can by linked to any of your Content Types by default. Simply, you're controlling it and also limiting available content types by configuration props
• Different types of navigation items: Create navigation with items linked to internal types, to external links or wrapper elements to keep structure clean
• Multiple navigations: Create as many Navigation containers as you want, setup them and use in the consumer application
• Light / Dark mode compatible: By design we're supporting Strapi ☀️ Light / 🌙 Dark modes
• Webhooks integration: Changes to navigation will trigger 'entry.update' or 'entry.create' webhook events.
• Customizable: Possibility to customize the options like: available Content Types, Maximum level for "attach to menu", Additional fields (audience)
• Audit log: integration with Strapi Molecules Audit Log plugin that provides changes track record

⚙️ Versions

• Strapi v4 - (current) - v2.x
• Strapi v3 - v1.x

⏳ Installation

Via Strapi Markerplace

As a ✅ verified plugin by Strapi team we're available on the Strapi Marketplace as well as In-App Marketplace where you can follow the installation instructions.

Via command line

It's recommended to use yarn to install this plugin within your Strapi project. You can install yarn with these docs.

yarn add strapi-plugin-navigation@latest

After successful installation you've to re-build your Strapi instance. To archive that simply use:

yarn build
yarn develop

or just run Strapi in the development mode with --watch-admin option:

yarn develop --watch-admin

The UI Navigation plugin should appear in the Plugins section of Strapi sidebar after you run app again.

You can manage your multiple navigation containers by going to the Navigation manage view by clicking "Manage" button.

As a next step you must configure your the plugin by the way you want to. See Configuration section.

All done. Enjoy 🎉

🖐 Requirements

Complete installation requirements are exact same as for Strapi itself and can be found in the documentation under Installation Requirements.

Supported Strapi versions:

• Strapi v4.20.x (recently tested)
• Strapi v4.x

This plugin is designed for Strapi v4 and is not working with v3.x. To get version for Strapi v3 install version v1.x.

We recommend always using the latest version of Strapi to start your new projects.

🔧 Configuration

To start your journey with Navigation plugin you must first setup it using the dedicated Settings page (v2.0.3 and newer) or for any version, put your configuration in config/plugins.js. Anyway we're recommending the click-through option where your configuration is going to be properly validated.

In v2.0.3 and newer

Version 2.0.3 introduces the intuitive Settings page which you can easily access via Strapi Settings -> Section: Navigation Plugin -> Configuration.

On the dedicated page, you will be able to set up all crucial properties which drive the plugin and customize each individual collection for which Navigation plugin should be enabled.

Note The default configuration for your plugin is fetched from config/plugins.js or, if the file is not there, directly from the plugin itself. If you would like to customize the default state to which you might revert, please follow the next section.

In v2.0.2 and older + default configuration state for v2.0.3 and newer

Config for this plugin is stored as a part of the config/plugins.js or config/<env>/plugins.js file. You can use the following snippet to make sure that the config structure is correct. If you've got already configurations for other plugins stores by this way, you can use the navigation along with them.

Note v2.0.3 and newer only Changing this file will not automatically change plugin configuration. To synchronize plugin's config with plugins.js file, it is necessary to restore configuration through the settings page

Note for newer than v2.2.0 slugify as been removed. THIS A BREAKING CHANGE

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    module.exports = ({ env }) => ({
        // ...
        navigation: {
            enabled: true,
            config: {
                additionalFields: ['audience', { name: 'my_custom_field', type: 'boolean', label: 'My custom field' }],
                contentTypes: ['api::page.page'],
                contentTypesNameFields: {
                    'api::page.page': ['title']
                },
                pathDefaultFields: {
                    'api::page.page': ['slug']
                },
                allowedLevels: 2,
                gql: {...},
            }
        }
    });

Properties

• additionalFields - Additional fields for navigation items. More here
• allowedLevels - Maximum level for which you're able to mark item as "Menu attached"
• contentTypes - UIDs of related content types
• contentTypesNameFields - Definition of content type title fields like 'api::<collection name>.<content type name>': ['field_name_1', 'field_name_2'], if not set titles are pulled from fields like ['title', 'subject', 'name']. TIP - Proper content type uid you can find in the URL of Content Manager where you're managing relevant entities like: admin/content-manager/collectionType/< THE UID HERE >?page=1&pageSize=10&sort=Title:ASC&plugins[i18n][locale]=en
• pathDefaultFields - The attribute to copy the default path from per content type. Syntax: 'api::<collection name>.<content type name>': ['url_slug', 'path']
• gql - If you're using GraphQL that's the right place to put all necessary settings. More here
• i18nEnabled - should you want to manage multi-locale content via navigation set this value Enabled. More here
• cascadeMenuAttached - If you don't want "Menu attached" to cascade on child items set this value Disabled.

Properties

Additional Fields

It is advised to configure additional fields through the plugin's Settings Page. There you can find the table of custom fields and toggle input for the audience field. When enabled, the audience field can be customized through the content manager. Custom fields can be added, edited, toggled, and removed with the use of the table provided on the Settings Page. When removing custom fields be advised that their values in navigation items will be lost. Disabling the custom fields will not affect the data and can be done with no consequence of loosing information.

Creating configuration for additional fields with the config.js file should be done with caution. Config object contains the additionalFields property of type Array<CustomField | 'audience'>, where CustomField is of type { type: 'string' | 'boolean' | { "name": string, "url": string, "mime": string, "width": number, "height": number, "previewUrl": string }, name: string, label: string }. When creating custom fields be advised that the name property has to be unique. When editing a custom field it is advised not to edit its name and type properties. After config has been restored the custom fields that are not present in config.js file will be deleted and their values in navigation items will be lost.

🔧 GQL Configuration

Using navigation with GraphQL requires both plugins to be installed and working. You can find installation guide for GraphQL plugin here. To properly configure GQL to work with navigation you should provide gql prop. This should contain union types that will be used to define GQL response format for your data while fetching:

Important! If you're using config/plugins.js to configure your plugins , please put navigation property before graphql. Otherwise types are not going to be properly added to GraphQL Schema. That's because of dynamic types which base on plugin configuration which are added on bootstrap stage, not register. This is not valid if you're using graphql plugin without any custom configuration, so most of cases in real.

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master: Int
items: [NavigationItem]
related: NavigationRelated

This prop should look as follows:

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gql: {
    navigationItemRelated: ['<your GQL related content types>'],
},

for example:

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gql: {
    navigationItemRelated: ['Page', 'UploadFile'],
},

where Page and UploadFile are your type names for the Content Types you're referring by navigation items relations.

🌍 i18n Internationalization

Settings

This feature is opt-in.

In order to use this functionality setting default locale is required. (See: Settings -> Internationalization)

Once feature is enabled a restart is required. On server startup missing navigations for other locales will be created. From then you can manage navigation's localizations just like before.

If you want go back to pre-i18n way you can disable it in settings. Already created navigations will not be removed unless you make a choice for plugin to do so(this will require a restart).

If your newly created navigation localization is empty you can copy contents of one version's to the empty one. If related item is localized and locale version exists localization will be used as a related item. Otherwise plugin will fallback to an original item.

Rendering

Shape of the rendered navigation will not change. Querying stays almost the same. To query for specific locale version just add locale query param. For example:

https://yourdomain.cool/api/navigation/render/1?locale=fr

or

https://yourdomain.cool/api/navigation/render/main-navigation?locale=fr

If locale is not specified whatever version used to be at id 1 will be returned.

Of course if you know that fr version is present at id 2 you can just query for that.

GraphQL

If feature is enabled GQL render navigation query is expanded to handle locale param(it will work the same as regular requests). Checkout schema provided by GraphQL plugin.

👤 RBAC

Plugin provides granular permissions based on Strapi RBAC functionality within the editorial interface & Admin API. Those settings are editable via the Setings -> Administration Panel -> Roles.

For any role different than Super Admin, to access the Navigation panel you must set following permissions:

Mandatory permissions

• Plugins -> Navigation -> Read - gives you the access to Navigation Panel

Other permissions

• Plugins -> Navigation -> Update - with this permission user is able to change Navigation structure
• Plugins -> Navigation -> Settings - special permission for users that should be able to change plugin settings

🔐 Authorization strategy

Is applied for Public API both for REST and GraphQL. You can manage is by two different ways. Those settings are editable via the Setings -> Users & Permissions Plugin -> Roles.

User based

• Public - as per description it's default role for any not authenticated user. By enabling Public API of the plugin here you're making it fully public, without any permissions check.
• Authenticated - as per description this is default role for Strapi Users. If you enable Public API here, for any call made you must use the User authentication token as Bearer <token>.

Token based

• Full Access - gives full access to every Strapi Content API including our plugin endpoints as well.
• Custom - granural access management to every Strapi Content API endpoints as well as plugin Public API - (recomended approach)

Note: Token usage & Read-Only tokens If you're aiming to use token based approach, for every call you must provide proper token in headers as Bearer <token>.

Important: As the Read-Only tokens are dedicated to support just find and findAll endpoints from Strapi Content API, they are not covering access to plugin Public API render and renderChild endpoints. We recommend to use the Custom token type for fully granural and secured approach instead of Full Access ones.

Reference: Strapi - API Tokens

Base Navigation Item model

Flat

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{
    "id": 1,
    "title": "News",
    "type": "INTERNAL",
    "path": "news",
    "externalPath": null,
    "uiRouterKey": "News",
    "menuAttached": false,
    "parent": 8, // Parent Navigation Item 'id', null in case of root level
    "master": 1, // Navigation 'id'
    "createdAt": "2020-09-29T13:29:19.086Z",
    "updatedAt": "2020-09-29T13:29:19.128Z",
    "related": {/*<Content Type model >*/ },
    "audience": []
}

Tree

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{
    "title": "News",
    "menuAttached": true,
    "path": "/news",
    "type": "INTERNAL",
    "uiRouterKey": "news",
    "slug": "benefits",
    "external": false,
    "related": {
        // <Content Type model >
    },
    "items": [
        {
            "title": "External url",
            "menuAttached": true,
            "path": "http://example.com",
            "type": "EXTERNAL",
            "uiRouterKey": "generic",
            "external": true
        },
       //  < Tree Navigation Item models >
    ]
}

RFR

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{
    "id": "News",
    "title": "News",
    "templateName": "pages:1",
    "related": {
        "contentType": "page",
        "collectionName": "pages",
        "id": 1
    },
    "path": "/news",
    "slug": "news",
    "parent": null, // Parent Navigation Item 'id', null in case of root level
    "menuAttached": true
}

🕸️ Public API specification

Plugin supports both REST API and GraphQL API exposed by Strapi.

Query Params

• navigationIdOrSlug - ID or slug for which your navigation structure is generated like for REST API:

  https://localhost:1337/api/navigation/render/1 https://localhost:1337/api/navigation/render/main-menu

• type - Enum value representing structure type of returned navigation:

  https://localhost:1337/api/navigation/render/1?type=FLAT

• menu (menuOnly for GQL) - Boolean value for querying only navigation items that are attached to menu should be rendered eg.

  https://localhost:1337/api/navigation/render/1?menu=true

• path - String value for querying navigation items by its path:

  https://localhost:1337/api/navigation/render/1?path=/home/about-us

REST API

Important! Version v2.0.13 introduced breaking change! All responses have changed their structure. Related field will now be of type ContentType instead of Array\<ContentType>

GET <host>/api/navigation/?locale=<locale>&orderBy=<orderBy>&orderDirection=<orderDirection>

NOTE: All params are optional

Example URL: https://localhost:1337/api/navigation?locale=en

Example response body

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[
  {
    "id": 383,
    "name": "Floor",
    "slug": "floor-pl",
    "visible": true,
    "createdAt": "2023-09-29T12:45:54.399Z",
    "updatedAt": "2023-09-29T13:44:08.702Z",
    "localeCode": "pl"
  },
  {
    "id": 384,
    "name": "Floor",
    "slug": "floor-fr",
    "visible": true,
    "createdAt": "2023-09-29T12:45:54.399Z",
    "updatedAt": "2023-09-29T13:44:08.725Z",
    "localeCode": "fr"
  },
  {
    "id": 382,
    "name": "Floor",
    "slug": "floor",
    "visible": true,
    "createdAt": "2023-09-29T12:45:54.173Z",
    "updatedAt": "2023-09-29T13:44:08.747Z",
    "localeCode": "en"
  },
  {
    "id": 374,
    "name": "Main navigation",
    "slug": "main-navigation-pl",
    "visible": true,
    "createdAt": "2023-09-29T12:22:30.373Z",
    "updatedAt": "2023-09-29T13:44:08.631Z",
    "localeCode": "pl"
  },
  {
    "id": 375,
    "name": "Main navigation",
    "slug": "main-navigation-fr",
    "visible": true,
    "createdAt": "2023-09-29T12:22:30.373Z",
    "updatedAt": "2023-09-29T13:44:08.658Z",
    "localeCode": "fr"
  },
  {
    "id": 373,
    "name": "Main navigation",
    "slug": "main-navigation",
    "visible": true,
    "createdAt": "2023-09-29T12:22:30.356Z",
    "updatedAt": "2023-09-29T13:44:08.680Z",
    "localeCode": "en"
  }
]

GET <host>/api/navigation/render/<navigationIdOrSlug>?type=<type>

Return a rendered navigation structure depends on passed type (TREE, RFR or nothing to render as FLAT).

The ID of navigation by default is 1, if you've got defined multiple navigations you must work with their IDs or Slugs to fetch.

Example URL: https://localhost:1337/api/navigation/render/1

Example response body

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[
    {
        "id": 1,
        "title": "News",
        "type": "INTERNAL",
        "path": "news",
        "externalPath": null,
        "uiRouterKey": "News",
        "menuAttached": false,
        "parent": null,
        "master": 1,
        "created_at": "2020-09-29T13:29:19.086Z",
        "updated_at": "2020-09-29T13:29:19.128Z",
        "related": {
            "__contentType": "Page",
            "id": 1,
            "title": "News",
            // ...
        }
    },
    // ...
]

Example URL: https://localhost:1337/api/navigation/render/1?type=TREE

Example response body

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[
    {
        "title": "News",
        "menuAttached": true,
        "path": "/news",
        "type": "INTERNAL",
        "uiRouterKey": "news",
        "slug": "benefits",
        "external": false,
        "related": {
            "__contentType": "Page",
            "id": 1,
            "title": "News",
            // ...
        },
        "items": [
            {
                "title": "External url",
                "menuAttached": true,
                "path": "http://example.com",
                "type": "EXTERNAL",
                "uiRouterKey": "generic",
                "external": true
            },
            // ...
        ]
    },
    // ...
]

Example URL: https://localhost:1337/api/navigation/render/1?type=RFR

Example response body

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{
    "pages": {
        "News": {
            "id": "News",
            "title": "News",
            "templateName": "pages:1",
            "related": {
                "contentType": "page",
                "collectionName": "pages",
                "id": 1
            },
            "path": "/news",
            "slug": "news",
            "parent": null,
            "menuAttached": true
        },
        "Community": {
            "id": "Community",
            "title": "Community",
            "templateName": "pages:2",
            "related": {
                "contentType": "page",
                "collectionName": "pages",
                "id": 2
            },
            "path": "/community",
            "slug": "community",
            "parent": null,
            "menuAttached": true
        },
        "Highlights": {
            "id": "Highlights",
            "title": "Highlights",
            "templateName": "pages:3",
            "related": {
                "contentType": "page",
                "collectionName": "pages",
                "id": 3
            },
            "path": "/community/highlights",
            "slug": "community-highlights",
            "parent": "Community",
            "menuAttached": false
        },
        // ...
    },
    "nav": {
        "root": [
            {
                "label": "News",
                "type": "internal",
                "page": "News"
            },
            {
                "label": "Community",
                "type": "internal",
                "page": "Community"
            },
            {
                "label": "External url",
                "type": "external",
                "url": "http://example.com"
            },
            // ...
        ],
        "Community": [
            {
                "label": "Highlights",
                "type": "internal",
                "page": "Highlights"
            },
            // ...
        ],
        // ...
    }
}

GraphQL API

Same as REST API returns a rendered navigation structure depends on passed type (TREE, RFR or nothing to render as FLAT).

Example request

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query {
  renderNavigation(
    navigationIdOrSlug: "main-navigation"
    type: TREE
    menuOnly: false
  ) {
    id
    title
    path
    related {
      id
      attributes {
        __typename

        ... on Page {
          Title
        }

        ... on WithFlowType {
          Name
        }
      }
    }
    items {
      id
      title
      path
      related {
        id
        attributes {
          __typename

          ... on Page {
            Title
          }

          ... on WithFlowType {
            Name
          }
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

Example response

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{
  "data": {
    "renderNavigation": [
      {
        "id": 8,
        "title": "Test page",
        "path": "/test-path",
        "related": {
          "id": 3,
          "attributes": {
            "__typename": "WithFlowType",
            "Name": "Test"
          }
        },
        "items": [
          {
            "id": 11,
            "title": "Nested",
            "path": "/test-path/nested-one",
            "related": {
              "id": 1,
              "attributes": {
                  "__typename": "Page",
                "Title": "Eg. Page title"
              }
            }
          }
        ]
      },
      {
        "id": 10,
        "title": "Another page",
        "path": "/another",
        "related": {
          "__typename": "Page",
          "Title": "Eg. Page title"
        },
        "items": []
      }
    ]
  }
}

Template name

Depending on a content type templateName will be resolved differently

For collection types it will be read from content type's attribute name template holding a component which definition has option named templateName.

For single types a global name of this content type will be used as a template name or it can be set manually with an option named templateName.

🔌 Extensions

Slug generation

Slug generation is available as a controller and service. If you have custom requirements outside of what this plugin provides you can add your own logic with plugins extensions.

For example:

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// path: /admin/src/index.js

module.exports = {
  // ...
  bootstrap({ strapi }) {
    const navigationCommonService = strapi.plugin("navigation").service("common");
    const originalGetSlug = navigationCommonService.getSlug;
    const preprocess = (q) => {
      return q + "suffix";
    };

    navigationCommonService.getSlug = (query) => {
      return originalGetSlug(preprocess(query));
    };
  },
};

Model lifecycle hooks

Navigation plugin allows to register lifecycle hooks for Navigation and NavigationItem content types.

You can read more about lifecycle hooks here. (You can set a listener for all of the hooks).

Lifecycle hooks can be register either in register() or bootstrap() methods of your server. You can register more than one listener for a specified lifecycle hook. For example: you want to do three things on navigation item creation and do not want to handle all of these actions in one big function. You can split logic in as many listeners as you want.

Listeners can by sync and async.

Be aware that lifecycle hooks registered in register() may be fired by plugin's bootstrapping. If you want listen to events triggered after server's startup use bootstrap().

Example:

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  const navigationCommonService = strapi
    .plugin("navigation")
    .service("common");

  navigationCommonService.registerLifecycleHook({
    callback: async ({ action, result }) => {
      const saveResult = await logIntoSystem(action, result);

      console.log(saveResult);
    },
    contentTypeName: "navigation",
    hookName: "afterCreate",
  });

  navigationCommonService.registerLifecycleHook({
    callback: async ({ action, result }) => {
      const saveResult = await logIntoSystem(action, result);

      console.log(saveResult);
    },
    contentTypeName: "navigation-item",
    hookName: "afterCreate",
  });

🧩 Examples

Live example of plugin usage can be found in the VirtusLab Strapi Examples repository.

💬 FAQ

GraphQL tricks

Q: I would like to use GraphQL schemas but I'm not getting renderNavigation query or even proper types as Navigation, NavigationItem etc. What should I do?

A: There is a one trick you might try. Strapi by default is ordering plugins by the way which takes strapi-plugin-graphql to initialize earlier than other plugins so types might not be injected. If you don't have it yet, please create config/plugins.js file and put there following lines (put graphql at the end):

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module.exports = {
  'navigation': { enabled: true },
  'graphql': { enabled: true },
};

If you already got it, make sure that navigation plugin is inserted before graphql. That should do the job.

🤝 Contributing

Feel free to fork and make a Pull Request to this plugin project. All the input is warmly welcome!

• Clone repository

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  git clone git@github.com:VirtusLab-Open-Source/strapi-plugin-navigation.git

• Create a soft link in your strapi project to plugin build folder

  ln -s <...>/strapi-plugin-navigation/build <...>/strapi-project/src/plugins/navigation 

• Run build command

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  // Watch for file changes
  yarn develop
  
  // or run build without nodemon
  yarn build:dev

👨‍💻 Community support

For general help using Strapi, please refer to the official Strapi documentation. For additional help, you can use one of these channels to ask a question:

• Discord We're present on official Strapi Discord workspace. Find us by [VirtusLab] prefix and DM.
• Slack - VirtusLab Open Source We're present on a public channel #strapi-molecules
• GitHub (Bug reports, Contributions, Questions and Discussions)
• E-mail - we will respond back as soon as possible

📝 License

MIT License Copyright (c) VirtusLab Sp. z o.o. & Strapi Solutions.