Drawer - Why is it so complicated to use?

[Daniel]

I love using all the kendo widgets you offer. But why is the drawer component so hard to use?

My approach is to use a global navigation sidebar. Currently I'm using the panelbar as navigation but somehow I have the feeling that the kendo panelbar was never intended to be a navbar.

So I looked again in the demos and saw the drawer. As described in the introduction it is intended to be used as a side navigation. Also I figured out that the left sidebar on the demo pages (where you can navigate through the available widgets kendo offer) is a drawer too. So I thought hey, maybe it is just the thing you need right now!

But then I tried to implement it in my app and it is a mess compared to all the other available kendo components. Just a few things I noticed, maybe somebody can answer me the points:

1. Why is the widget automatically configured to use a "content"? When not defining a content (because I want the widget just for navigation, not for showing any content by clicking on a item because the widget should only navigate me to other pages), I have to mess with the css that the space for the content is disapearing (see in the picture).
2. Why this widget doesn't support to create the items via razor syntax? A lot of other components support to add its items through razor via ".Items(x => x.Add().Text("Home"))". Here I have to configure so much html to create a simple, small and lightweight menu via ".Template(@"[..]")".
   In addition, the kendo panelbar supports even to add an action behind every item through ".Action("Index", "Home")" (exactely what I need and what I'm using right now).
3. Why is the collapsing of a submenu not integrated in the component? In the demo under "Hierarchy" I have to register the "ItemClick"-event and have to insert the whole logic for collapsing in javascript. Yes, you provided a working script but why it isn't a built-in feature of the component?
4. Or maybe I'm wrong and the drawer is not the component I'm searching for? In my opinion the drawer is comparable to a vertical tabstrip where all the content is already existing in background and after clicking on an item the content will be shown. It's not really working like a navigation bar which will provide you to the set url. Somehow I wonder why I am the only one who wants a simple sidebar navigation with hierarchy, where it will redirect me to the page by clicking on its item.

In the second picture you see the super easy to use panelbar as my current navigation bar in my application compared to the drawer I tried to integrate. Like I said I have the feeling the panelbar component is not intended to be a navbar. Also it has a bug which I already reported to you and which is pretty annoying (https://github.com/telerik/kendo-ui-core/issues/6528).

[Mihaela]

Hi Daniel,

Thank you for the provided extensive information on the case you are dealing with.

Here is my feedback:

1) By design, the Drawer is a UI component that loads content passed as an HTML string. However, you could render each page as a partial View by sending an AJAX request. Check out this forum thread.

2) Feel free to submit your idea as a feature request in our Feedback Portal.

3) As is discussed in this forum thread, this suggestion is logged in the Feedback Portal.

4) I would suggest using the Menu widget (it supports a vertical orientation, as well) to implement the navigation sidebar for your application. It exposes the ability to attach an Action Method to each item and the corresponding View will be loaded through the "RenderBody()" method.

In case of any additional queries, please let me know. I would be happy to assist you further.

 

Regards, Mihaela Progress Telerik