# Admin panel customization

The admin panel is a node_module that is similar to a plugin, except that it encapsulates all the installed plugins of a Strapi application. Some of its aspects can be customized, and plugins can also extend it.

To toggle hot reloading and get errors in the console while developing, start Strapi in front-end development mode by running the application with the --watch-admin flag:

cd my-app # cd into the root directory of the Strapi application project
strapi develop --watch-admin

# Customization options

Customizing the admin panel is helpful to better reflect your brand identity or to modify some default Strapi behavior:

  • The access URL, host and port can be modified through the server configuration.
  • The configuration object allows replacing the logos and favicon, defining locales and extending translations, extending the theme, and disabling some Strapi default behaviors like displaying video tutorials or notifications about new Strapi releases.
  • The WYSIWYG editor can be replaced or customized.
  • The forgotten password email can be customized with a template and variables.
  • The webpack configuration based on webpack 5 can also be extended for advanced customization

# Access URL

By default, the administration panel is exposed via http://localhost:1337/admin (opens new window). For security reasons, this path can be updated.

Example:

To make the admin panel accessible from http://localhost:1337/dashboard, use this in the server configuration file:

🤓 Advanced settings

For more advanced settings please see the admin panel configuration documentation.

# Host and port

By default, the front end development server runs on localhost:8000 but this can be modified:

# Configuration options

PREREQUISITES

Before configuring any admin panel customization option, make sure to:

  • rename the default app.example.js file into app.js,
  • and create a new extensions folder in ./src/admin/. Strapi projects already contain by default another extensions folder in ./src/ but it is for plugins extensions only (see Plugins extension).

The config object found at ./src/admin/app.js stores the admin panel configuration.

Any file used by the config object (e.g. a custom logo) should be placed in a ./src/admin/extensions/ folder and imported inside ./src/admin/app.js.

The config object accepts the following parameters:

Parameter Type Description
auth Object Accepts a logo key to replace the default Strapi logo on login screen
head Object Accepts a favicon key to replace the default Strapi favicon
locales Array of Strings Defines availables locales (see updating locales)
translations Object Extends the translations
menu Object Accepts the logo key to change the logo in the main navigation
theme Object Overrides or extends the theme
tutorials Boolean Toggles displaying the video tutorials
notifications Object Accepts the releases key (Boolean) to toggle displaying notifications about new releases
Example of a custom configuration for the admin panel:

# Locales

To update the list of available locales in the admin panel, use the config.locales array:

✏️ NOTES

  • The en locale cannot be removed from the build as it is both the fallback (i.e. if a translation is not found in a locale, the en will be used) and the default locale (i.e. used when a user opens the administration panel for the first time).
  • The full list of available locales is accessible on Strapi's Github repo (opens new window).
# Extending translations

Translation key/value pairs are declared in @strapi/admin/admin/src/translations/[language-name].json files. These keys can be extended through the config.translations key:

If more translations files should be added, place them in ./src/admin/extensions/translations folder.

# Logos

The Strapi admin panel displays a logo in 2 different locations, represented by 2 different keys in the admin panel configuration:

Location in the UI Configuration key to update
On the login page config.auth.logo
In the main navigation config.menu.logo

To update the logos, put image files in the ./src/admin/extensions folder and update the corresponding keys.

The size of the custom image should be the same as the default one (434px x 120px).

# Favicon

To update the favicon, put a favicon file in the ./src/admin/extensions folder and update the config.head.favicon key in the admin panel configuration.

# Tutorial videos

To disable the information box containing the tutorial videos, set the config.tutorials key to false.

# Releases notifications

To disable notifications about new Strapi releases, set the config.notifications.release key to false.

# Theme extension

To extend the theme, use the config.theme key.

🤓 Strapi Design System

The default Strapi theme (opens new window) defines various theme-related keys (shadows, colors…) that can be updated through the config.theme key in ./admin/src/app.js. The Strapi Design System (opens new window) is fully customizable.

✏️ NOTE

Strapi applications can be displayed either in Light or Dark mode (see administrator profile setup in the User Guide), however custom theme extension is only applied for Light mode. When choosing Dark mode for a Strapi application, theme customizations are ignored.

# WYSIWYG editor

To change the current WYSIWYG, you can install a third-party plugin (opens new window), create your own plugin (see creating a new field in the admin panel) or take advantage of the bootstrap lifecycle and the extensions system:

# 'Forgotten password' email

To customize the 'Forgotten password' email, provide your own template (formatted as a lodash template (opens new window)).

The template will be compiled with the following variables: url, user.email, user.username, user.firstname, user.lastname.

Example:

# Webpack configuration

PREREQUISITES

Make sure to rename the default webpack.config.example.js file into webpack.config.js before customizing webpack.

In order to extend the usage of webpack v5, define a function that extends its configuration inside ./my-app/src/admin/webpack.config.js:

module.exports = {
  // WARNING: the admin panel now uses webpack 5 to bundle the application.
  webpack: (config, webpack) => {
    // Note: we provide webpack above so you should not `require` it

    // Perform customizations to webpack config
    config.plugins.push(new webpack.IgnorePlugin(/\/__tests__\//));

    // Important: return the modified config
    return config;
  },
};

✏️ NOTE

Only ./src/admin/app.js and the files under the ./src/admin/extensions folder are being watched by the webpack dev server.

# Extension

There are 2 use cases to extend the admin panel:

  • A plugin developer wants to develop a Strapi plugin that extends the admin panel everytime it's installed in any Strapi application. This can be done by taking advantage of the Admin Panel API.

  • A Strapi user only needs to extend a specific instance of a Strapi application. This can be done by directly updating the ./src/admin/app.js file, which can import any file located in ./src/admin/extensions.

# Deployment

The administration is a React front-end application calling an API. The front end and the back end are independent and can be deployed on different servers, which brings us to different scenarios:

  • Deploy the entire project on the same server.
  • Deploy the administration panel on a server (AWS S3, Azure, etc) different from the API server.

Build configurations differ for each case.

Before deployment, the admin panel needs to be built, by running the following command from the project's root directory:

This will replace the folder's content located at ./build. Visit http://localhost:1337/admin (opens new window) to make sure customizations have been taken into account.

# Same server

Deploying the admin panel and the API on the same server is the default behavior. The build configuration will be automatically set. The server will start on the defined port and the administration panel will be accessible through http://yourdomain.com:1337/admin.

💡 TIP

You might want to change the path to access the administration panel.

# Different servers

To deploy the front end and the back end on different servers, use the following configuration:

After running yarn build with this configuration, the build folder will be created/overwritten. Use this folder to serve it from another server with the domain of your choice (e.g. http://yourfrontend.com).

The administration URL will then be http://yourfrontend.com and every request from the panel will hit the backend at http://yourbackend.com.

✏️ NOTE

If you add a path to the url option, it won't prefix your app. To do so, use a proxy server like Nginx (see optional software guides).

← Plugins extension →