The admin: a tour

The admin (at http://localhost:3000 in a project made with manablox create, served by the management API itself) is a single-page app talking to the management API. Everything it does is also reachable over RPC and REST, so nothing here is admin-only; these pages describe where each thing lives and the rules it enforces.

The layout

+--------------+--------------------------------------------------+
| Space v      | space name | locale v | keys | ? | bell | site   |  top bar
|              +--------------------------------------------------+
| Dashboard    |                                                  |
| Content      |                                                  |
| Menus        |              the page                            |
| Design       |                                                  |
| Workflows    |                                                  |
| Webhooks     |                                                  |
| Content types|                                                  |
| Redirects    |                                                  |
| Assets       |                                                  |
| Activity     |                                                  |
| Settings     |                                                  |
| you          |                                                  |
+--------------+--------------------------------------------------+

The space switcher at the top of the sidebar picks the space you are working in. Everything in the sidebar below Dashboard is scoped to it.
The locale switch in the top bar, shown when the space has more than one, picks the language you are editing. The content tree, the editor and the menus follow it.
The keyboard button in the top bar, left of the bell, lists what the keyboard does on the page you are looking at. ? opens the same dialog; see Keyboard shortcuts.
The help menu (?) in the top bar, when the instance is set up with them, links to documentation, support, billing (superadmins only) and upgrade pages.
The bell in the top bar carries your unread notifications; see Notifications and approvals.
The site link in the top bar opens the space’s frontend URL in a new tab.
Your name at the bottom of the sidebar opens your profile: name, password, notification preferences.

Section	What it holds	Page
Dashboard	The space’s figures, recently updated documents, shortcuts to start something, the language
Content	The document tree, search, the editor	Editing content
Databags	Flat records outside the tree, in a searchable, paged table per type	Databags
Menus	Named navigations built from documents and links	Menus
Design	The designed site: theme, block, page, layout and menu designs, site settings, domains, publishing	Designed sites
Workflows	Automations: API calls, AI, documents, mails, notifications (the workflows plugin)	Workflows
Webhooks	The calls the space receives and the calls it makes (the webhooks plugin)	Webhooks
Content types	The builder for document and block types	Building content types
Databag types	The builder for databag types	Databags
Redirects	Old addresses and where they lead, by hand or recorded when a page moves	Redirects
Assets	The space’s file library	Assets
Activity	The audit log: who did what, when, and what changed	Activity
Settings > Spaces	Spaces, their settings, members, uploads, transfer	Spaces and members, Moving a space
Settings > Backups	Snapshots of the space: take one, download, restore	Backups
Settings > Roles	What a role may do in a space	Users and roles
Settings > Tags	The space’s tag vocabulary: rename, merge, delete	Tags
Settings > AI	The providers the space generates text, images and video with (the AI plugin)	AI
Settings > Users	The instance’s accounts (superadmin only)	Users and roles
Settings > Security	The two-factor policy and single sign-on providers (superadmin only)	Users and roles, Single sign-on
Settings > API keys	Credentials for programs	API keys
Notifications	Your inbox: approvals to give, answers to what you asked	Notifications and approvals
Profile	Your name, email and password, and where each kind of notification reaches you	Notifications and approvals

Who sees what

What the sidebar shows depends on your role in the current space: an editor does not see Workflows unless the instance loads the workflows plugin and the role grants workflows:read, Activity needs audit:read, an author sees the “new document” menu only for the types the role may write, the magic wand appears only where the instance loads the AI plugin, the space has a provider and the role grants ai:use, and Settings > Users exists only for a superadmin. The permissions are listed in Users and roles.

Banners, read-only and suspended

Whoever hosts the instance can show messages in the admin and restrict it; nothing in the admin changes these, superadmins included. See Controls.

Banners appear in a strip below the top bar, coloured by level: information, a warning (yellow) or something urgent (red). Some have a “Learn more” link, and some can be closed with the x on the right; a closed banner stays closed for your account in this browser.
A read-only instance or space shows “This instance is read-only.” or “This space is read-only.” below the top bar, often with a reason. You can open and read everything, export spaces and change your own profile, but saving, publishing, uploading and deleting are refused with a message, and workflows do not start. Sites and the delivery API keep working.
A suspended instance shows a single page after sign-in with the reason and the help links, for everyone. The site and the delivery API are unavailable meanwhile. Use “Check again” once the host has lifted it, or sign out.

Conventions

Technical names fill themselves in. A space, a content type, a field, a menu and a role each have a label and a technical name (machineName in the API). The technical name follows the label as you type, spaces become hyphens, capitals are lowered, umlauts transliterate (ue for a u umlaut, ss for eszett), until you type one yourself, and it locks when the thing is saved, because it is part of an API: a GraphQL type name, a field name, a menu’s address.
Destructive actions ask first, in a dialog that says what actually happens. Deleting a space additionally requires typing its technical name.
The keyboard works everywhere. Save is Cmd+S (Ctrl+S) on every editor, g and a letter jumps to a section, / reaches the search box, n starts a new one, and Esc closes the topmost dialog. ? lists the keys the open page answers to; see Keyboard shortcuts.
Errors are sentences. A save with field errors marks the fields and says so once; anything else shows the server’s message. Every message maps to an error key, which is what an API client sees.
Light and dark follow the system, or the choice made with the theme toggle in the sidebar.