Add Product Variants Index to Navigation Menu

[mgambella]

Description:

While working on product management, I discovered a hidden but incredibly useful feature that significantly improved my workflow: the Product Variants index page with bulk editing capabilities.

Current Behavior:

The default product management interface (/admin/commerce/products/products?source=productType%3A...) displays products with variants accessible only through a right-side panel. This makes bulk editing variants cumbersome and time-consuming, especially when working with multiple variants across different products.

Discovery:

By manually changing the URL from /admin/commerce/products/... to /admin/commerce/variants/..., I discovered a dedicated Product Variants index page that includes:

• A comprehensive list view of all variants
• Bulk edit capabilities
• Sortable columns
• Better data visibility

This view saved me hours of work, but I only found it by accident through URL manipulation.

Expected Behavior:

The Product Variants index should be easily discoverable and accessible through the main navigation. Specifically:

• Add a "Product Variants" menu item under Commerce → Products in the left sidebar navigation
• Alternatively, add a toggle/tab in the Products view to switch between "Products" and "Variants" view
• Make this feature visible in the documentation

Why This Matters:

For shops with products that have multiple variants (different sizes, colors, materials, etc.), being able to view and edit all variants in a unified index with bulk operations is essential for efficient product management. Having this feature hidden behind manual URL manipulation means most users will never discover this time-saving functionality.

Environment:

Craft Commerce version: 5.5.0
Craft CMS version: 5.8.20

Additional Context:

The feature already exists and works perfectly - it just needs to be surfaced in the UI for discoverability.

[nfourtythree]

Hi @mgambella

Thank you for the suggestion. The reasons you have stated were the main reasons why we started exploring adding a full variants view to Commerce.

There were a few choices and decisions as to why this was never fully fleshed out. We are going to re-evaluate this to see if it is something that we can bring to a future version.

For now if you would like to add the variants to the Commerce sub nav you can do it with the following code:

use Craft;
use craft\base\Event;
use craft\events\RegisterCpNavItemsEvent;
use craft\web\twig\variables\Cp;

//...

Event::on(Cp::class, Cp::EVENT_REGISTER_CP_NAV_ITEMS, function(RegisterCpNavItemsEvent $event) {
    foreach ($event->navItems as &$navItem) {
        if ($navItem['url'] !== 'commerce') {
            continue;
        }

        $variantsNavItem = [
            'label' => Craft::t('commerce', 'Variants'),
            'url' => 'commerce/variants',
        ];

        $subNav = $navItem['subnav'] ?? [];
        $keys = array_keys($subNav);
        $pos = array_search('products', $keys, true);
        if ($pos !== false) {
            $before = array_slice($subNav, 0, $pos + 1, true);
            $after = array_slice($subNav, $pos + 1, null, true);
            $subNav = $before + ['variants' => $variantsNavItem] + $after;
        } else {
            $subNav['variants'] = $variantsNavItem;
        }

        $navItem['subnav'] = $subNav;
    }
});

Please view this with the caveat that things should work but are not completely tested due to it not being a fully fledged core feature.

Hope this helps, we will post further updates as to when/if this feature will be implemented.

Thanks!

[mgambella]

This is great news! thanks for taking this in consideration again!