Am I the only one struggling with the Side Bar Frame?

App Building
1

Hello to the community,

I am asking you about the use of the Side Bar Frame.

I have several questions about it:

  1. Why is it not possible to create a Side Bar as a reusable module?
  2. Why am I redirected to the app/module associated with a Side Bar menu, rather than having the app/module displayed in the Main frame?

I'm looking to use the Side Bar to break my dashboard into multiple apps/modules to increase performance.

Thank you for creating Retool, it's an amazing tool and I look forward to mastering it fully.

2

Hi and welcome to the community.

I think the main pointer I'd give is that the sidebar is an optional area of the app, just like the header is.
Within those areas you can add any component or module you wish. By default they come with a navigation component. Personally, I have a header section on every app and I add the same top level navigation module in each of them.

So, the sidebar itself isn't a reusable module but you can put a reusable module into the sidebar, if that makes sense?

Using the sidebar for navigation between apps is a sensible approach and can definitely help performance - lazy loading, caching, and other techniques can also help on this front.

Not sure I understand your second point, maybe you can explain with an example or screenshot?

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3

Hey D, thanks for your time.

I ended up creating a navigation module, inserted into all my necessary modules.
Then I place the navigation module at the top of my "main" application so I can switch between them.

Lazy loading, caching, and other techniques can also help on this front.
I totally agree, I'm working on this too.

I'm fairly new to Retool, and even though I use Vue/React professionally every day, I need some time to understand the logic :slight_smile:

I'll be happy to share my progress, maybe the showcase section is more appropriate.

Thanks !

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