Finding your way around

Every admin page has the same four parts: the menu, the header bar across the top, the page itself, and a footer.

The menu

By default the menu is a column down the left of the screen. Top-level entries such as Sales, Catalog and Content open to reveal what is inside them. The entry for the page you are on is highlighted, and the section that contains it is already open when the page loads.

Some menu entries carry a small count badge. That is the number of items waiting for attention in that area. Out of the box exactly one entry has one: Marketing, Pending Reviews, showing how many reviews are still waiting to be moderated. A count above ninety-nine is shown as 99+. An extension can add a badge to any other entry. Badges appear in the sidebar and in the Magento rail, but not in the top bar.

Control	What it does
The arrows button in the header, at the left	Collapses the menu to a narrow strip, or expands it again
A top-level entry	Opens or closes that section
A leaf entry	Goes to that page
The pin icon on a leaf entry	Adds the page to the Pinned group at the top of the menu, or removes it
The grip handle on a pinned entry	Drag to reorder your pinned items
The cross on a pinned entry	Removes the pin

Pins are yours alone. They do not affect anyone else's menu. They are saved against your administrator account rather than in your browser, so they follow you to any machine you sign in from. The page reloads each time you pin or unpin.

Your collapsed or expanded choice is remembered in your browser. On a tablet or a phone the menu is a drawer that starts closed on every page, and tapping the dimmed area behind it closes it again.

Below the menu sits a short footer. Help & Support opens Adobe's Commerce admin manual in a new tab, which describes the stock admin rather than this one. What's new does not open anything yet, and the number beside it is a fixed placeholder rather than a count of anything waiting. The version line under them is a fixed string rather than the version you have. The ShopInfo panel described below is where the installed version is read.

Where things moved

Nebula does not only restyle the menu, it flattens it. Sub-menus that existed only to hold three or four items are gone, and their contents sit directly under the top-level entry. If you know the stock admin, this is where your habits will miss.

In the stock admin	In Nebula
Catalog, Inventory, Products and Categories	The Inventory grouping above Products and Categories is gone. Sources and Stocks are untouched and stay under Stores, Inventory
Catalog, Products and Categories	Catalog carries Products, Categories, Attributes and Attribute Sets directly
Sales, Operations, Orders	Sales carries Orders, Invoices, Shipments, Credit Memos, Transactions, Billing Agreements and Payment Services directly
Marketing, Promotions, Communications, SEO & Search, User Content	All four sub-menus are gone. Every item sits directly under Marketing
Content, Elements, Pages	Content carries Pages, Blocks, Widgets, Design and Media directly
Content, Media, Media Gallery	Content, Media. Nebula's own gallery takes the slot on the same permission, so no role changes
Stores, Attributes	Attributes and Attribute Sets appear under Catalog as well, and Stores, Attributes lists them as Product and Attribute Set beside Rating
Stores, Other Settings	Gone. Order Status was never inside it: it already sat under Stores, Settings, and Nebula keeps it there
Advanced Reporting, Business Intelligence and Marketplace Partners	Removed from the menu. These are sign-up pages for hosted Adobe products rather than working admin screens. The routes still answer for anyone with a bookmark or an existing subscription

Putting the menu somewhere else

The menu can sit across the top of the screen instead of down the side. Set Menu Position in Configuration under Nebula, Nebula Admin Theme, Settings.

Option	What you get	What it does not have
Sidebar	A column down the left. This is the default	Nothing. Every control described above is here
Top	A horizontal bar of icons across the top, each opening a dropdown. Hovering an icon names the section	The Pinned group, the pin buttons, the drag handles, the count badges, the collapse button and the menu footer with Help & Support, What's new and the version line
Magento rail	A narrow left rail showing an icon above a label for each section, with flyout sub-menus and count badges	The Pinned group, the pin buttons, the drag handles, the collapse button and the menu footer with Help & Support, What's new and the version line. A fixed-width rail has no expanded form, so there would be nothing for the collapse button to do

Pinning is a sidebar feature only. Switching position does not delete your pins: they are held on your account, so they reappear the moment the menu is set back to Sidebar.

The search palette

Press Cmd+K on macOS or Ctrl+K elsewhere, anywhere in the admin. A search box opens over the page.

Type any part of what you are looking for. Every space-separated word has to appear somewhere in the entry's name or in the trail of menu names above it, and the words can be in any order, so stat ord finds Stores, Settings, Order Status.

The palette searches two things:

• every admin page your role may open, taken from the same menu the sidebar draws;
• every settings section and settings group your role may open inside Stores, Configuration.

Individual settings fields are not listed. Groups are, so searching for gift finds the Gift Options group rather than each checkbox inside it.

The list shows twelve entries at most. With an empty box those are the first twelve in the index. With something typed they are the first twelve entries that match, in the palette's own order, which is admin pages first and settings sections and groups after. Nothing is scored, so a broad word such as enable can bury the settings group you want under menu entries. If what you want is not in the list, type another fragment of its name rather than looking for more results. Every word you type has to match, so a second word shortens the list instead of lengthening it.

Move with Up and Down, open with Enter, close with Esc. Clicking a result opens it. Choosing a settings group takes you to that settings page and opens the group for you, rather than leaving you at a closed heading.

The palette only ever offers pages you are allowed to open, so you cannot land on a permission error from it.

The header bar

Control	What it does
The arrows button	Collapses or expands the menu
The date in the middle	Today's day and date. It is not a control
The bell	Opens the three most recent unread notifications, with an unread count. Ends with a link to the full list
The sun or moon	Switches between light and dark appearance
Your name and initials	Opens the account menu

The bell is drawn only for roles that hold the Magento_AdminNotification::show_toolbar permission. A role without it gets no bell and no explanation, and System, Other Settings, Notifications is then the only way to the list. The count on the bell stops at ninety-nine, so a hundred or more unread notifications all read 99.

Dark mode follows your computer's own setting until you press the sun or moon once. After that your choice is remembered in that browser, on every admin page, and it is yours alone.

The account menu holds your name and email address, Account Settings, View Storefront, which opens the shop in a new tab, and Sign Out.

The footer

Every admin page ends with a footer: the copyright line on the left and a ShopInfo button on the right.

Press it and a panel opens upward. It shows the Magento or Mage-OS version, the Nebula Admin version with a badge naming the installed edition, and a chip naming the mode the store is running in: Default, Developer or Production. A row for the Hyvä Theme Module appears when that module is installed. Nebula takes Magento's own version lines out of the footer, so this panel is where they now are.

This is the place to look when something asks which version you are on or which mode the store is in.

Messages

A save confirmation, a warning or an error arrives as a card that slides down at the top centre of the screen, above the rest of the page, with a bar across it counting down.

Control	What it does
Waiting about five seconds	The card closes itself
Hovering the card	Stops the countdown. Moving the pointer away resumes it
The pause button	Freezes the card until you press it again
The cross	Closes the card at once

Errors arrive as the same kind of card. Read one before it goes: the message is not left anywhere on the page afterwards, and there is no history of cards you have dismissed. The bell in the header is a separate, permanent list and is not affected.

Stores, Configuration

Configuration is one screen with a section menu beside a form. The section menu groups every settings section under its tab heading, and the tab holding the section you are editing is already open.

Type in the Search config box at the top of the section menu to narrow it. Two or more characters opens every tab and shows only the sections whose names match.

Each settings group on the right is a panel that starts closed. Click a heading to open it. Arriving from the search palette opens the group you chose and scrolls to it.

Every group heading also carries a pin at its right-hand end. Pin a group and it opens by itself every time you come back to that settings page, instead of starting closed. Press the pin again to unpin. Pinning a closed group also opens it there and then, unpinning leaves the group as it is, and neither press toggles the group the way clicking the heading does. Pins here are yours alone, stored against your administrator account rather than against the store, and they are separate from the menu pins in the sidebar. They work on core settings groups as much as on Nebula's own, although a few third-party payment groups that keep their vendor's own rendering show no pin.

Changing a field does nothing until you press Save Config in the toolbar at the top of the page, which stays in view as you scroll. Saving submits the whole section rather than the group you opened, so a select you never touched is saved at whatever it is currently showing. Configuration warns where that matters.

The scope picker sits in the same toolbar, to the left of the Save button. Choosing a website or a store view reloads the page showing that scope's values. A field you have not overridden there is greyed out with its inherit checkbox ticked, labelled Use system value at default scope, and you untick it before the field will accept anything. Tick it again to go back to the inherited value. Which Nebula groups accept a website or store-view value at all is listed under Scope.

Where the section menu sits is a setting of its own, Configuration Menu Position, in Configuration under Nebula, Nebula Admin Theme, Settings.

Option	What you get
Sidebar	A fixed left column. Nothing to open or close
Rail	The same column, with a control that collapses it to a strip and gives the width back to the form. Your choice is remembered
Toolbar	No column at all. The menu is behind a Sections button beside the scope picker. Esc or a click outside closes it, and it never reopens itself after a page load

Choose Toolbar if you work on a narrow screen with the main menu collapsed.