Navigation
The three-tier desk navigation model — Desktop Icon, Workspace Sidebar and the legacy Workspace/Dashboard records both still coexist with it — and what this site can and cannot claim about render precedence.
ERPNext v16 ships a new three-tier navigation fixture set — Desktop Icon → Workspace Sidebar → body — on top of the older Workspace (and Dashboard) records that predate it. This page lays out the structure of both and how they reference each other. It does not, and cannot, say which one the running desk actually renders — see the note below.
None of these fixtures looks like an abandoned migration stub. Visibility is tracked
differently per kind: all 14 legacy workspaces carry public: 1 and is_hidden: 0; Workspace Sidebar fixtures carry neither key at all, so no sidebar can be marked non-public or hidden;
Desktop Icon fixtures carry a hidden flag instead — 4 of 24 are hidden (see the table below).
None carries an empty body.
Desktop icons
24 fixtures in erpnext/desktop_icon/*.json, in their shipped idx order. 22 are Link icons
resolving to a Workspace Sidebar; one Folder (Accounting) groups other icons without a link
target of its own; one App root (ERPNext) is link_type: External. 4 are hidden.
source order preserved (desktop layout idx)
| Icon | Type | Parent | Target | Hidden |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Home |
Link | — | Home (Workspace Sidebar) |
Yes |
Invoicing |
Link | Accounting |
Invoicing (Workspace Sidebar) |
No |
Organization |
Link | — | Organization (Workspace Sidebar) |
No |
Accounting |
Folder | — | — | No |
Assets |
Link | ERPNext |
Assets (Workspace Sidebar) |
No |
Buying |
Link | ERPNext |
Buying (Workspace Sidebar) |
No |
CRM |
Link | ERPNext |
CRM (Workspace Sidebar) |
Yes |
Manufacturing |
Link | ERPNext |
Manufacturing (Workspace Sidebar) |
No |
Payments |
Link | Accounting |
Payments (Workspace Sidebar) |
No |
Projects |
Link | ERPNext |
Projects (Workspace Sidebar) |
No |
Quality |
Link | ERPNext |
Quality (Workspace Sidebar) |
No |
Selling |
Link | ERPNext |
Selling (Workspace Sidebar) |
No |
Stock |
Link | ERPNext |
Stock (Workspace Sidebar) |
No |
Support |
Link | ERPNext |
Support (Workspace Sidebar) |
Yes |
Financial Reports |
Link | Accounting |
Financial Reports (Workspace Sidebar) |
No |
Accounts Setup |
Link | Accounting |
Accounts Setup (Workspace Sidebar) |
No |
Taxes |
Link | Accounting |
Taxes (Workspace Sidebar) |
No |
Banking |
Link | Accounting |
Banking (Workspace Sidebar) |
No |
Budget |
Link | Accounting |
Budget (Workspace Sidebar) |
No |
Subcontracting |
Link | — | Subcontracting (Workspace Sidebar) |
No |
Share Management |
Link | Accounting |
Share Management (Workspace Sidebar) |
No |
Subscription |
Link | Accounting |
Subscription (Workspace Sidebar) |
No |
ERPNext Settings |
Link | — | ERPNext Settings (Workspace Sidebar) |
No |
ERPNext |
App | — | External | Yes |
The sidebar → legacy workspace join
13 Workspace Sidebar items carry link_type: "Workspace". All 13 resolve — 0 dangling — to 12
distinct legacy workspaces (Invoicing’s sidebar links to both Financial Reports and
Invoicing; Payments’s sidebar links to Financial Reports).
| Sidebar | Links to Workspace |
|---|---|
Assets |
Assets |
Buying |
Buying |
Home |
Home |
Invoicing |
Financial Reports |
Invoicing |
Invoicing |
Manufacturing |
Manufacturing |
Payments |
Financial Reports |
Projects |
Projects |
Quality |
Quality |
Selling |
Selling |
Stock |
Stock |
Subcontracting |
Subcontracting |
Support |
Support |
Two legacy workspaces are linked from no sidebar at all: CRM and ERPNext Settings. Both remain
public: 1, un-hidden, with non-empty content — reachable only if something outside this
fixture set (a saved link, a direct /app/<workspace> route) still points at them. See
Workspaces for the full 14-row table, including these two.
No v16 patch retires the legacy model — the only navigation-related patch in v16_0,
remove_payables_receivables_workspace.py, deletes both a Workspace Sidebar and a Workspace
of the same name (Receivables, Payables), treating the two record types as a matched pair
rather than migrating one into the other.
Two loose ends in the source, stated as observed
erpnext/report_center/accounting.json carries "sidebar": "Accounting". That string matches the
Accounting desktop-icon folder (see the table above), not a Workspace Sidebar fixture named
Accounting — no such sidebar exists. Without Frappe source, this site cannot say what field type
sidebar is or how it is used at render time; it is recorded here as a fact about the fixture, not
as a broken reference. See Reports for the four reports it lists.
The Subcontracting workspace sidebar declares "module": "Buying", while the legacy
Subcontracting workspace it links to declares "module": "Subcontracting" — the two fixtures
disagree about which module owns the same navigation entry. Both values are reproduced as-is
throughout this section rather than reconciled.