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Custom Quick Launch using Fluent UI Nav in SPFx

Ravichandran Krishnasamy19 Comments

This article provides steps to implement the Custom Quick Launch using Fluent UI Nav in the SharePoint Framework (SPFx) web part, generally, Fluent UI Navs (also called “left nav” or “navigation pane”) provide links to the main areas of an app or a site. In larger configurations, the Nav is always on-screen, usually on the left of the view. In smaller configurations, the Nav may collapse into a skinnier version or be completely hidden until the user taps an icon.

Create a new web part project

Open power shell and run following comment to create a new web part by running the Yeoman SharePoint Generator

yo @microsoft/sharepoint

When prompted:

Enter the webpart name as your solution name, and then select Enter.
Select Create a subfolder with solution name for where to place the files.
Select Y to allow the solution to be deployed to all sites immediately.
Select N on the question if solution contains unique permissions.
Select WebPart as the client-side component type to be created.

The next set of prompts ask for specific information about your web part:

Enter your web part name, and then select Enter.
Enter your web part description, and then select Enter.
Select React framework as the framework you would like to use, and then select Enter.

Start Visual Studio Code (or your favorite code editor) within the context of the newly created project folder.

cd .\web part name\
code .

Install the library and required dependencies

npm install @pnp/sp --save

Import the library into your application, update constructor, and access the root sp object in render for PnPjs libraries.

sp.setup({spfxContext: this.props.contect});

Configure the custom properties

Create a new source code file under the src\webparts\<Webpart name>\components\ folder of the solution. Create the new file I<web part name>State.ts and use it to create a TypeScript Interface

import { INavLinkGroup } from 'office-ui-fabric-react/lib/Nav';
export interface ISpfxFluentuiNavState {
  links: INavLinkGroup[];
}

In addition, you need to update the render method of the client-side web part to create a properly configured instance of the React component for rendering. The following code shows the updated method definition.

  public render(): void {
    const element: React.ReactElement<ISpfxFluentuiNavProps> = React.createElement(
      SpfxFluentuiNav,
      {
        description: this.properties.description,
        context:this.context
      }
    );
    ReactDom.render(element, this.domElement);
  }

Update the tsx file located under the components. First, add some import statements to import the types you defined earlier. Notice the import for I<web part name>Props and I<web part name>State. There are also some imports for the PnP components used to render the UI of the PnP React component and pnp sp imports.

import * as React from 'react';
import styles from './SpfxFluentuiNav.module.scss';
import { ISpfxFluentuiNavProps } from './ISpfxFluentuiNavProps';
import { ISpfxFluentuiNavState } from './ISpfxFluentuiNavState';
import { Nav, INavLink, INavStyles, INavLinkGroup } from 'office-ui-fabric-react/lib/Nav';
import { sp } from "@pnp/sp";
import "@pnp/sp/webs";
import "@pnp/sp/lists";
import "@pnp/sp/items";

Replace this render function with the following code.

  public render(): React.ReactElement<ISpfxFluentuiNavProps> {
    return (
      <div className={styles.spfxFluentuiNav}>
        <Nav onLinkClick={this._onLinkClick}
          selectedKey="5"
          ariaLabel="Nav basic example"
          styles={navStyles}
          groups={this.state.links} />
      </div>
    );
  }

Update the React component type declaration and add a constructor, as shown in the following example.

export default class SpfxFluentuiNav extends React.Component<ISpfxFluentuiNavProps, ISpfxFluentuiNavState> {
  constructor(props: ISpfxFluentuiNavProps) {
    super(props);
    sp.setup({
      spfxContext: this.props.context
    });
    this.state = {
      links: []
    }
    this._getLinks();
  }

place the below code inside the react component code, these functions using PnPjs to get links from the SharePoint list

  private async _getLinks() {
    const allItems: any[] = await sp.web.lists.getByTitle("TreeLinks").items.getAll();
    const linkgroupcol: INavLinkGroup[] = [{ links: [] }];
    let linkcol: INavLink[] = linkgroupcol[0].links;
    allItems.forEach(function (v, i) {
      if (v["ParentId"] == null) {
        linkcol.push({ name: v["Title"], url: v["Link"], links: [], key: v.Id + '', isExpanded: true, target: '_blank' })
      }
      else {
        const link: INavLink = { key: v.Id + '', name: v["Title"], url: v["Link"], links: [], target: '_blank' }
        var treecol: INavLink[] = linkcol.filter(function (value) { return value.key == v["ParentId"] })
        if (treecol.length != 0) {
          treecol[0].links.push(link);
        }
      }
    });
    console.log(linkgroupcol);
    this.setState({ links: linkgroupcol });
  }

  private _onLinkClick(ev?: React.MouseEvent<HTMLElement>, item?: INavLink) {
    if (item && item.name === 'SharePoint') {
      console.log('SharePoint link clicked');
    }
  }

Deploy the solution

You’re now ready to build, bundle, package, and deploy the solution.

Run the gulp commands to verify that the solution builds correctly.

gulp build

Use the following command to bundle and package the solution.

gulp bundle --ship
gulp package-solution --ship

Browse to the app catalog of your target tenant and upload the solution package. You can find the solution package under the sharepoint/solution folder of your solution. It is the .sppkg file. After you upload the solution package in the app catalog. you can find and the web part anywhere across the tenant.

Sharing is caring!

If you have any questions, feel free to let me know in the comments section.
Happy coding!!!

19 thoughts on “Custom Quick Launch using Fluent UI Nav in SPFx”

  1. Hi, can you let me know, whether this can be used as an top navigation menu too. I need an application customizer extension with tree structure but at the top placeholder. Can i use the same thing there OR suggest me which control i can use it there as i need responsive design multilevel tree structure with the same layout. Thanks

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  3. Hi Ravi, this is great artical and helpful for my usecase.

    can you give we hit how to replace existing quick launch with this webaprt ?

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  4. Hi Ravi

    Great article and example, bu I am also facing the ‘INavLink’ is not assignable to parameter of type ‘INavLinkGroup’ problem.

    any thoughts?

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  7. Hi, great article, have you find a way to deploy it to all pages in the left navigation place automatically for all pages? as a chrome or replace the existing OOB control?

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