Adobe CQ5's sidekick is empty (no components shown)

Question

I've added a paragraph system component in my template, trying to emulate the Geometrixx's contentPage. Everything is fine but I can't drag any components into the system because there are none to add. What can I be missing?

More information:

• My component page inherits from foundation's page. (primary type: cqComponent)
• My template page has that component as resource type. (primary type: cqTemplate)
• The page (primary type: cqPage), in its jcr:content node has the component as resource type, the template as cq:Template property, and has par as a child (whose type is foundation/components/parsys)
• Inside the jsp template there is this line:

<cq:include path="par" resourceType="foundation/components/parsys"/>

Beamon

Answer 1

Each CQ5 template has a different set of components that can be defined to be available for use. This allows you to control what the authors will be allowed to use, and it makes it easier for them, because they will only see the relevant components, instead of the tons of components CQ5 offers.

When looking at a page, you can switch to something called the "design" mode (as opposed to the "edit" or "preview" modes where you spend most of your time authoring the page). This design mode allows to define the per-template specific settings. It is accessed through the yellow ruler icon on the very bottom of the sidekick.

When in design mode, click on the "Edit" button that is on the blue toolbar called "Design of par", there you'll be able to enable the components you want to be able to use.

When you'll be building components, keep in mind that the design mode and the corresponding design dialogs of the components is a convenient way to define global per-template settings that you don't want to be required to be set specifically on each component instance.

Exhilarant

Thanks man! And I'll definitely use those forums. I'm still learning this awesome CMS. – Beamon

Even after enabling some components in design mode , my sidekick is still empty? Can anyone help me solve this problem. – Upgrade

For anyone looking for how to persist these settings in the codebase. 'Design' mode will edit the settings which are stored under /etc/designs. For example /etc/designs/your-project/jcr:content/your-template/par This should help place the settings into the project code and deploy to a new instance with the paragraph settings in place – Vexatious

Answer 2

Sometimes even if you have the components selected from "design mode" you might not see them.

This is because the sidekick side just needs to be increased to show all the components. Just go to the edge of the sidekick and drag to increase its height when the two sided arrow shows.

Hope this helps someone because I had this issue before.

Utgardloki

unbelievable. I thought my sidekick was empty, but in fact it was not, just had to resize it (pull the bottom edge down). Slaps forehead, thank you for that answer! – Kristenkristi

Wow! I had exactly this problem! I was going through a tutorial, added a component in design mode, and suddenly none of the components (custom or standard) were showing up in edit mode. It never occurred to me that the Sidekick merely needed to be resized. Thanks very much! – Mcclung

Answer 3

In my case I had already configured the allowed components using design mode as well as tried re-sizing the sidekick. However none of it worked.

What worked in my case was to explicitly select a design other than the default design. Somehow the components property was not getting stored on etc/designs/default/jcr:content/templateName/parName node even after configuring this in design mode.

So basically you need to select your project specific design from page properties. Then go on and configure the allowed components in design mode. Now the components that you configured will be visible.

Sussi

Answer 4

CQ5 having cache clear problem, if you are developing your components using CRXDE Light, please refresh your page once, still SideKick not showing components, logout once and login again. It will resolve your issue.If you have configured component and template correct.

Scottie