[DEPR]: Remove ability to modify Learning MFE sidebar behavior with waffle flags

[brian-smith-tcril]

Proposal Date

2025-02-27

Target Ticket Acceptance Date

2025-03-14

Earliest Open edX Named Release Without This Functionality

Ulmo - 2025-12

Rationale

There are currently multiple ways to configure sidebar behavior in the Learning MFE:

• Using Frontend Plugin Framework slots (as of feat: wrap existing sidebars in frontend-plugin-framework PluginSlots frontend-app-learning#1543, to be released in Teak)
• Using the following waffle flags:
  • courseware.enable_navigation_sidebar
  • courseware.always_open_auxiliary_sidebar

There are downsides to having multiple ways to do one thing:

• Supporting 2 things requires more work from MFE maintainers than supporting 1 thing.
• Having 2 ways to configure something is more complicated for site operators than having 1 way.

There are also downsides to the waffle flags themselves:

• Supporting the waffle flags in the Learning MFE adds more complexity than the Frontend Plugin Framework slots do.
• The waffle flags do not provide as much flexibility in customization as the Frontend Plugin Framework slots do.

Removal

The following waffle flags will be removed:

• courseware.enable_navigation_sidebar
• courseware.always_open_auxiliary_sidebar

All of the logic surrounding those waffle flags in frontend-app-learning will be removed.

Replacement

Context: All logic surrounding the use of courseware.enable_navigation_sidebar and courseware.always_open_auxiliary_sidebar has already been wrapped in Frontend Plugin Framework slots (as of openedx/frontend-app-learning#1543, to be released in Teak). This means the "default content" of the sidebar slots is where the logic is being used.

The default content of the sidebar slots in the Learning MFE will now always behave as it does currently when courseware.enable_navigation_sidebar is true and courseware.always_open_auxiliary_sidebar is false.

Site operators that wish to replicate any behavior that differs from that default will need to be move that logic into plugins that can be used with the existing sidebar slots.

Deprecation

No response

Migration

No response

Additional Info

No response

Task List

No response

[KristinAoki]

@brian-smith-tcril does this mean that the left sidebar will become that default behavior and the top unit navigation and breadcrumbs will be deprecated? To my knowledge both of those items rendering are dependent on the waffle flag.