Side navigation helps people move through the pages in one section of the site — the current page's parent, siblings and children.
What it is
The Side navigation block renders the NSW Design System Side navigation(opens in new window) component — the vertical menu that helps people move through the pages in one section of the site.
It shows where the current page sits: its section, the sibling pages around it, and the pages beneath it — so people can move up and down the hierarchy without returning to a landing page.
A side navigation is slot-only: switch the page to a left-sidebar layout and it appears in the left rail. By default it's automatic — a Listing inside it pulls the whole section from the site and builds the menu, so you don't add it from the block menu or type the items by hand.
You don't nest items by hand: the block works out the levels from each item's address, so the menu mirrors the real site structure (up to four levels deep). The current page is highlighted automatically. The Example tab shows a two-level section.
Switch the page to a left-sidebar layout — the section navigation builds itself
Configure it
A page can make the nav its own: select it to rename the heading, add your own groups and links, and remove the section Listing — for example a reports section grouped by year. That change is for that page only; every other page keeps the section's nav. Behind the automatic nav, a few options control what it shows:
Heading — the section label shown above the list (and on the mobile toggle).
Heading link — where that label links to, usually the section's landing page. Leave it empty and the heading shows as plain text.
Show only the current branch — collapse the parts of the tree that aren't on the current page's path. On by default.
Include the section root — add the top-level section page as the first item in the list.
Navigation group — a heading that opens and closes its own list of links, for sorting a section's pages into piles (by topic, say). Add one beside the ordinary links; put links or a listing inside it. The group holding the current page starts open. Inside a group the links are one flat list, and a group can't hold another group.
Display (on a listing in the side nav) — Tree nests the listed pages by where they sit in the site; Grouped sorts them under headings by Tags, Content type, Folder or Date (by year or month). A page with two tags is listed under both, the groups come in the order the listing first meets them, and pages with nothing to group by go in a last group whose heading you set.
Tips
Use it for long sections with several pages — it's the counterpart to In-page navigation, which moves within a single page.
Keep labels short; they sit in a narrow column.
The automatic menu rebuilds itself from the site structure, so there's nothing to keep in sync when pages move or get renamed. A nav you've made a page's own doesn't: update its links yourself.
A two-level side navigation. The current page is highlighted automatically.
With groups
With groups: each heading opens and closes its own list of links, and the group holding the current page starts open. The header has no link, so it shows as plain text.