Customize the Content Editor

Current version: 9.3

In the Content Editor there are several user interface elements that you can customize:

The Content Editor elements – you can decide which elements of the Content Editor to display.
The Content Editor ribbon – you can hide tabs, hide the entire ribbon, or create your own toolbar within the ribbon.
The content tree – you can add quick actions, resize the content tree pane, or hide it entirely.

This topic describes how to customize these elements.

Customize elements in the Content Editor

To set up the application options for the Content Editor:

In the Content Editor, click the Content Editor menu, and then click Application Options.
In the Application Options dialog box:
- On the Content Editor tab, select or clear any of the check boxes to hide or show the relevant element.
- On the View tab, specify how you want the content tree to be displayed.
- On the View tab, specify how you want the content tree to be displayed.
When you have finished configuring the application options, click OK.

Customize the Content Editor ribbon

To customize the Content Editor ribbon:

In the Content Editor, right-click anywhere on the ribbon.
In the menu that appears, clear the check boxes of the tabs that you want to hide in the ribbon. To restore the default tab selection, click Reset.

Note

To hide the ribbon entirely and only display the tabs, double-click any tab on the Content Editor ribbon. To display the ribbon again, click any tab.
To create your own toolbar in the ribbon, click Customize.
In the Customize My Toolbar dialog box, in the All pane, expand the groups and select the commands that you want on your toolbar.

Note

You can only add commands and not the groups to your toolbar. However, you can add the command Separator to divide the added commands into groups. Use the up and down arrows to place the commands in the order that you want.
When you have finished, click OK.
Right-click on the Content Editor ribbon and, in the menu, select My Toolbar. The My Toolbar tab is added to the ribbon and contains all the commands that you just selected.

Customize the content tree

In the Content Editor, you can choose to hide or show certain elements in the content tree, and you can also customize the Quick Action bar on the left side of the content tree.

Hide elements in the content tree

To hide or show certain elements in the content tree:

In the content editor, on the View tab, select or clear the relevant checkboxes.

The View tab in the Content Editor ribbon

The elements are:

Content Tree - clear the check box to hide the content tree.
Entire Tree - clear the check box to hide the root of the content tree (sitecore) and the Media Library. This means that users can only see the items that are part of their website.
Hidden Items - clear the check box to hide some of the system items that are displayed in the content tree.
Raw Values and Standard Fields - these settings are only relevant for administrators.

Note

If the content tree takes up too much space, you can drag the bar between the content tree and the editing pane left or right, to resize the content tree pane. In addition, you can press F11 to expand the browser window to fill the entire screen and hide the user interface elements, such as the title bar, menus, toolbar, and the status bar.

Display quick actions

The Quick Action Bar is on the left side of the content tree and can display useful information about the items in the content tree. For example, the Quick Action Bar can display quick actions that tell you which items are item buckets, cloned items, or locked items. Some of the quick actions are only for information while others you can click on to perform an action on the item.

The Quick Action bar in the content tree

When you right-click the Quick Action Bar, a floating menu appears with a list of the available quick actions that you can click to display or hide next to the items in the content tree. You can display as many of the quick actions as you like, but the performance might decrease for every action you select.

The floating menu with Quick Actions you can choose to display

Note

The quick actions that are available to you can vary. This is controlled by your Sitecore system administrator.

To display or hide items in the content tree:

Right-click the Quick Action bar and in the floating menu select the quick actions that you want to display

The quick actions are:

Item Buckets – appears next to the items that are item buckets.
Clones Items – appears next to the items that are a clone of another item. Click the icon to open the original item.
My Locked items – appears next to the items that you have locked. Click the icon to unlock the item.
Locked items – appears next to the items that are locked by other users. Place your mouse over the icon and the tooltip shows you who locked the item.
Workflow state – appears next to the items that are in a workflow state. If you have the necessary permissions, you can click the icon and move the item to the next workflow state.
Broken Links – appears next to items that contain broken links.
Missing Version – appears next to the items that are missing a language version.
Publishing Warnings – appears next to the items that have publishing warnings.
Validation Rules – appears next to the items that contain validation errors.
Presentation Overridden – appears next to the items where the template layout settings are overridden by another layout.

Important

The Validation Rules and Broken Links quick actions slow down performance the most. Every time you open an item in the content tree, Sitecore must refresh these quick actions.

Specify item sort order

Sitecore sorts items in the content tree by item name by default. You can change the sort order in two ways:

You can change the position of the currently selected item within the items at the same level in the content tree.
You can sort the subitems of the currently selected item.

If you do change the position of an item or the sort order of subitems, Sitecore remembers the new sort order (for this user).

To move the currently selected item in the content tree to a new position:

In the content tree, select the item you want to move.
On the Home tab, in the Sorting group, use the four buttons to sort the subitems:
- Up - move the item up.
- Down - move the item down.
- First - move the item so that it becomes the first item among the items at the same level.
- Last - move the item so that it becomes the last item among the items at the same level.

To sort the subitems of the currently selected item:

In the content tree, select the item you want to sort subitems for.
On the Home tab, in the Sorting group, click to Sorting to open the Sort Order of Subitems window:
In the Sorting dropdown, select the sort order you want. You can see the effect in the preview in the window:

You can choose between these sort orders:
- Created - sort the subitems in ascending order by the time they were created. The item creation date is the creation date of the oldest item version across all language versions.
- Default - sort the subitems in ascending order by their names. Numbers are treated as ASCII code values and not numerical values. The sorting is case insensitive.
- Display Name - sort the subitems in ascending order by their display names. If an item does not have a display name, the item name is used. This sorting is a logical sorting, so numbers are sorted by their numerical value.
- Logical - same sort as Default, except the numbers are treated as their numerical values.
- Reverse - same sort as Default, except in descending order.
- Updated - sort the subitems in ascending order by the time they were updated.
- [Reset to standard value] - reset the sort order to the default.
Click OK to apply the sort order you selected.

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