Customizing the Admin

Customizing API Platform Admin is easy and idiomatic. The tool gives you the ability to customize everything, from the list of resource types that must be administrable to every single input or button.

To do so, you can use the React components provided by API Platform Admin itself, React Admin, Material UI, community libraries, or write your own.

Customizing the Admin's Main Page and the Resource List

By default, API Platform Admin automatically builds a tailored Resource component (and all its appropriate children) for each resource type exposed by a web API. Under the hood it uses the @api-platform/api-doc-parser library to parse the API documentation. The API documentation can use Hydra, OpenAPI and any other format supported by the library. Resources are listed in the order they appear in the machine-readable documentation.

However, it's also possible to display only specific resources, and to order them, while still benefiting from all discovery features provided by API Platform Admin. To cherry-pick the resources to make available through the admin, pass a list of <ResourceGuesser> components as children of the root component:

import { HydraAdmin, ResourceGuesser } from "@api-platform/admin";

export default () => (
  <HydraAdmin entrypoint="https://demo.api-platform.com">
    <ResourceGuesser name="books" />
    <ResourceGuesser name="reviews" />

    {/* While deprecated resources are hidden by default, using an explicit ResourceGuesser component allows to add them back. */}
    <ResourceGuesser name="parchments" />
  </HydraAdmin>
);

Instead of using the <ResourceGuesser> component provided by API Platform Admin, you can also pass custom React Admin's Resource components, or any other React components that are supported by React Admin's Admin.

Customizing the List View

The list view can be customized following the same pattern:

import {
  HydraAdmin,
  ResourceGuesser,
  ListGuesser,
  FieldGuesser
} from "@api-platform/admin";

const ReviewsList = props => (
  <ListGuesser {...props}>
    <FieldGuesser source="author" />
    <FieldGuesser source="book" />

    {/* While deprecated fields are hidden by default, using an explicit FieldGuesser component allows to add them back. */}
    <FieldGuesser source="letter" />
  </ListGuesser>
);

export default () => (
  <HydraAdmin entrypoint="https://demo.api-platform.com">
    <ResourceGuesser name="reviews" list={ReviewsList} />
    {/* ... */}
  </HydraAdmin>
);

In this example, only the fields author, book and letter (that is hidden by default because it is deprecated) will be displayed. The defined order will be respected.

In addition to the <FieldGuesser> component, all React Admin Fields components can be passed as children of <ListGuesser>.

Customizing the Show View

For the show view:

import {
  HydraAdmin,
  ResourceGuesser,
  ShowGuesser,
  FieldGuesser
} from "@api-platform/admin";

const ReviewsShow = props => (
  <ShowGuesser {...props}>
    <FieldGuesser source="author" />
    <FieldGuesser source="book" />
    <FieldGuesser source="rating" />

    {/* While deprecated fields are hidden by default, using an explicit FieldGuesser component allows to add them back. */}
    <FieldGuesser source="letter" />

    <FieldGuesser source="body" />
    <FieldGuesser source="publicationDate" />
  </ShowGuesser>
);

export default () => (
  <HydraAdmin entrypoint="https://demo.api-platform.com">
    <ResourceGuesser name="reviews" show={ReviewsShow} />
    {/* ... */}
  </HydraAdmin>
);

In addition to the <FieldGuesser> component, all React Admin Fields components can be passed as children of <ShowGuesser>.

Customizing the Create Form

Again, the same logic applies to forms. Here is how to customize the create form:

import {
  HydraAdmin,
  ResourceGuesser,
  CreateGuesser,
  InputGuesser
} from "@api-platform/admin";

const ReviewsCreate = props => (
  <CreateGuesser {...props}>
    <InputGuesser source="author" />
    <InputGuesser source="book" />
    <InputGuesser source="rating" />

    {/* While deprecated fields are hidden by default, using an explicit InputGuesser component allows to add them back. */}
    <InputGuesser source="letter" />

    <InputGuesser source="body" />
    <InputGuesser source="publicationDate" />
  </CreateGuesser>
);

export default () => (
  <HydraAdmin entrypoint="https://demo.api-platform.com">
    <ResourceGuesser name="reviews" create={ReviewsCreate} />
    {/* ... */}
  </HydraAdmin>
);

In addition to the <InputGuesser> component, all React Admin Input components can be passed as children of <CreateGuesser>.

For instance, using an autocomplete input is straightforward, check out the dedicated documentation entry!

Customizing the Edit Form

Finally, you can customize the edit form the same way:

import {
  HydraAdmin,
  ResourceGuesser,
  EditGuesser,
  InputGuesser
} from "@api-platform/admin";

const ReviewsEdit = props => (
  <EditGuesser {...props}>
    <InputGuesser source="author" />
    <InputGuesser source="book" />
    <InputGuesser source="rating" />

    {/* While deprecated fields are hidden by default, using an explicit InputGuesser component allows to add them back. */}
    <InputGuesser source="letter" />

    <InputGuesser source="body" />
    <InputGuesser source="publicationDate" />
  </EditGuesser>
);

export default () => (
  <HydraAdmin entrypoint="https://demo.api-platform.com">
    <ResourceGuesser edit={ReviewsEdit}/>
    {/* ... */}
  </HydraAdmin>
);

In addition to the <InputGuesser> component, all React Admin Input components can be passed as children of <EditGuesser>.

For instance, using an autocomplete input is straightforward, checkout the dedicated documentation entry!

Going Further

API Platform is built on top of React Admin. You can use all the features provided by the underlying library with API Platform Admin, including support for authentication, authorization and deeper customization.

To learn more about these capabilities, refer to the React Admin documentation.