Disclaimer: This plugin was built with the assistance of Claude (Anthropic) and is provided as a prototype/proof of concept. It is offered as-is, without warranty of any kind. The author accepts no liability for any data loss, site breakage, or other issues arising from its use. That said, the plugin only modifies control panel behaviour — it does not read, write, or touch user content or the database.
A private Craft CMS 5 plugin that improves the control panel experience for single sections (also adds some bonus features for all section types and index pages).
The internal plugin handle remains _singles-manager for backwards compatibility with existing project configs.
Single sections are listed individually in the entry element-index sources sidebar instead of being grouped under a single "Singles" item (similar to the Expanded Singles plugin).
Clicking a single in the sources sidebar opens the entry editor with a persistent left-nav sidebar — just like globals work in Craft. The full native entry editor is used (drafts, revisions, preview, publish flow, right-hand metadata panel, etc.).
Main nav items that lead to a page containing a single as their first source link directly to that single's edit form, skipping the element index entirely.
When a page has only one source, the sources sidebar is hidden automatically — there is nothing useful to show. The "Customize Sources" button remains accessible.
A toggle on each section's settings page hides the right-hand metadata panel (slug, post date, authors, etc.) when editing an entry in that section. Useful for settings (former global sets) pages where the metadata fields are irrelevant.
When any section's source is disabled in the element sources config (e.g. it is grouped inside a custom source), you can assign a fallback breadcrumb source. The breadcrumb will then show the correct page and, when the page has multiple sources, the custom source label — instead of a disabled breadcrumb segment. The setting has no effect when the section's source is enabled.
After saving a single:
- Enabled source — stays on the single's edit form.
- Disabled source with a fallback source, page has multiple sources — redirects to the fallback source's page.
- Disabled source with a fallback source, page has only one source — stays on the edit form.
- Craft CMS 5.9+
ddev composer require thupsi/craft-singleton:^0.4.0 && ddev craft plugin/install _singles-manager{
"repositories": [
{
"type": "vcs",
"url": "https://github.com/thupsi/craft-singleton"
}
]
}For private repos, configure a GitHub personal access token:
composer config --global github-oauth.github.com <your-token>composer require thupsi/craft-singleton:^0.4.0php craft plugin/install _singles-managerOr go to Settings → Plugins in the control panel.
Review your source ordering — the old grouped singles key is replaced by individual single:{uid} keys.
All settings are stored in project config under plugins._singles-manager.settings and propagate to all environments via php craft project-config/apply.
On any section's settings page (or via the section settings slideout on an entry), enable "Hide right sidebar" to remove the right-hand metadata panel for that section.
On the same settings form, use the "Fallback breadcrumb source" dropdown to choose any enabled source. This applies to all section types (singles, channels, structures) and takes effect only when the section's own source is disabled — ensuring the breadcrumb points to a meaningful location rather than the generic "Entries" page. The dropdown is pre-grouped by page for easy navigation.
If a section should be navigated to via a custom CP nav link or custom source rather than the built-in sources sidebar, mark its source as disabled in Settings → Sources. For singles, the plugin also skips sidebar injection. Configure a fallback breadcrumb source to keep breadcrumbs accurate.