[FEATURE] Using custom menu in external apps #439

New issue

Open

opened 2025-07-15 12:45:44 +02:00 by pamuche · 1 comment

pamuche commented

2025-07-15 12:45:44 +02:00

Description

I really like custom menu. Thanks a lot for the effort and work on this nice piece if software 😘
I would like to ask if you have in mind to enable usage in external apps. I have got a lot of external apps like discourse, dokuwiki, roundcube to complete nextcloud features. Sadly if I include the through external apps plugin I loose the specific url of the app to e.g. directly link to a post of discourse, because an app in external link is running inside an iframe.

So my plan was to use custom menu to include in my external app (through JS/CSS) and to remove the menu of the given app (e.g. discourse).

There are already two api routes: https://cloud-url/apps/side_menu/js/config and https://cloud-url/apps/side_menu/nav/items, sadly the js/css code in https://cloud-url/custom_apps/side_menu/js/sideMenu.js and https://cloud-url/apps/side_menu/js/script
is slightly coupled to nextcloud JS and DOM.

Do you see a way to totaly decouple rendering from nextcloud, to load some JS/CSS inside my external app and show it with something like: SMCreate.showMenu("body #css-id-to-put-sidemenu-in")? Configuration can still be take place in nextcloud (One can even think to provide a absolute autonomus backend to provide a fully decoupled menu solution :smi).

I can help too if you have a roadmap for such a plan.

Benefits

Can be used not only in nextcloud context.

More informations

No response

### Description I really like custom menu. Thanks a lot for the effort and work on this nice piece if software 😘 I would like to ask if you have in mind to enable usage in external apps. I have got a lot of external apps like discourse, dokuwiki, roundcube to complete nextcloud features. Sadly if I include the through external apps plugin I loose the specific url of the app to e.g. directly link to a post of discourse, because an app in external link is running inside an iframe. So my plan was to use custom menu to include in my external app (through JS/CSS) and to remove the menu of the given app (e.g. discourse). There are already two api routes: `https://cloud-url/apps/side_menu/js/config` and `https://cloud-url/apps/side_menu/nav/items`, sadly the js/css code in `https://cloud-url/custom_apps/side_menu/js/sideMenu.js` and `https://cloud-url/apps/side_menu/js/script` is slightly coupled to nextcloud JS and DOM. Do you see a way to totaly decouple rendering from nextcloud, to load some JS/CSS inside my external app and show it with something like: `SMCreate.showMenu("body #css-id-to-put-sidemenu-in")`? Configuration can still be take place in nextcloud (One can even think to provide a absolute autonomus backend to provide a fully decoupled menu solution :smi). I can help too if you have a roadmap for such a plan. ### Benefits Can be used not only in nextcloud context. ### More informations _No response_

pamuche added the

enhancement

label

2025-07-15 12:45:44 +02:00

deblan commented

2025-07-17 11:45:11 +02:00

Owner

Hello @pamuche

Thanks for your great feedback 🙂

This feature is not in my roadmap because it's more a specific project.

There are many thinks to considerer:

the aspect of the top menu is managed by Nextcloud, so Custom Menu "just" add or remove apps
all datas retrieves from the Custom menu API are based on the logged user. Externals apps are basically not logged into Nextcloud are so their users too
HTTP CORS constraints
...

Such a good idea but not trivial!

Hello @pamuche Thanks for your great feedback 🙂 This feature is not in my roadmap because it's more a specific project. There are many thinks to considerer: - the aspect of the top menu is managed by Nextcloud, so Custom Menu "just" add or remove apps - all datas retrieves from the Custom menu API are based on the logged user. Externals apps are basically not logged into Nextcloud are so their users too - HTTP CORS constraints - ... Such a good idea but not trivial!