README

A Shopware 6 plugin that displays a customizable, time-controlled information bar at the top of your storefront with dynamic messaging capabilities.

Features

Multiple information bars per sales channel, each with its own schedule
A bar without a period runs permanently and is superseded by scheduled bars inside their window
Messages maintainable per sales channel and language
Dedicated admin pages under Content → Information bar: a list, a detail page per bar and a defaults page
Time-controlled display with start and end dates, evaluated against a configurable timezone
Rotating messages with smooth fade transitions (one line per rotation)
Centered layout that keeps the button in place while the lines change
Customizable appearance per bar (colors, fonts, padding)
Colours are applied as CSS custom properties, so theme:compile is no longer needed after a colour change
Optional call-to-action button
Full-width or container layout options
Responsive design
AJAX request awareness (no display on AJAX calls)
Accessibility: hidden lines are excluded from screen readers, new-window links are announced as such, and the fade respects reduced-motion preferences
Bars can be duplicated
ACL privileges (act_information_bar with viewer/editor/creator/deleter roles)
Multi-language admin interface (German & English)
Compatible with Shopware 6.7

Requirements

Shopware 6.7 or higher
PHP 8.4 or higher

Installation

Via Composer (recommended)

composer require actualizer/information-bar
bin/console plugin:refresh
bin/console plugin:install --activate ActInformationBar
bin/console cache:clear

Manual

Download or clone this plugin into your custom/plugins/ directory

Install and activate the plugin via CLI:

bin/console plugin:refresh
bin/console plugin:install --activate ActInformationBar
bin/console cache:clear

Updating

Nothing has to be re-entered. On update, all settings that used to live in the plugin configuration (appearance, timing, texts) are copied into the bar itself. The storefront keeps showing the same bar with the same texts, colors and schedule; everything is now maintained under Content → Information bar, and the plugin configuration only shows an info banner.

If a shop overrode one of the plugin's Sass variables ($act-information-bar-*) in its own theme, that override is superseded by the value configured on the bar from 1.5.0 onward. The variables remain in place as fallbacks for empty values.

Configuration

Everything is maintained under Content → Information bar. The plugin configuration (Settings → System → Plugins → Actualize: Time-controlled Information Bar) only shows an info banner; it no longer holds any settings.

Go to Admin Panel → Content → Information bar
The list shows every bar across all sales channels; use "Add bar" to create a new one or open an existing one
Pick the language via the language switch on the detail page to edit that language's texts
Edit the fields and save

Each bar belongs to one sales channel (or "All Sales Channels") and can have its own schedule and appearance. A bar without a start and end date runs permanently; a bar with a schedule supersedes the permanent bar of the same sales channel while its window is active and hands display back to it afterwards. Among overlapping scheduled bars, the one with the later start date wins. A bar can be duplicated from the list's context menu; the copy's start and end dates are cleared so it does not immediately compete with the original.

When saving a bar, the detail page warns (without blocking the save) if the end date is not after the start date, or if a start or end date falls on a day when the configured timezone's clock changes.

Configuration Options

Bars

Name: Internal name shown in the list, not displayed in the storefront
Active: Enable/disable the bar
Sales Channel: The sales channel the bar applies to, or "All Sales Channels"
Start Date / End Date: The bar's schedule, evaluated against the configured timezone (see Defaults below). Leave both empty for permanent display
Message: The text to display, one line per rotation (plain text - HTML is not rendered)
Button Text, Button URL, Button Title: Optional call-to-action button; it is only rendered when both text and URL are set
Full Width: Display bar across full browser width or within container
Display Duration: How long each message iteration displays (in seconds)
Text Color, Background Color: Bar colors (hex values)
Padding Top, Padding Bottom: Padding in pixels
Font Size: Text size in pixels
Show Button: Enable/disable the CTA button
Button Target: Link target (_self, _blank). With _blank the link carries rel="noopener noreferrer" and a visually hidden "opens in a new window" hint for screen readers
Button Text Color, Button Text Color (Hover): Button text color
Button Border Color, Button Border Color (Hover): Button border color
Button Border Width: Border thickness in pixels
Button Background Color, Button Background Color (Hover): Button background color

Texts are translatable per language: if a language has no text of its own, the plugin falls back to the default language of the sales channel, then to the system default language, and only then to the global record — in that order. An empty message in one language therefore never makes the bar disappear. The message decides: the first record and language with a non-empty message supplies all four texts. Filling in only a button text while leaving the message of that language empty means the whole language is skipped and the button text is never shown. Appearance and schedule are not translatable — they belong to the bar, not to a language.

Defaults

The defaults page (Content → Information bar → Defaults) holds the values that are copied into a bar when it is created — the same appearance fields listed above, plus the timezone. It does not affect existing bars; changing a default only changes what a newly created bar starts out with.

The timezone setting is the shop's timezone for evaluating start and end dates, independent of the sales channel and independent of any individual admin user's profile timezone. If left unset, it falls back to the server timezone (PHP's date.timezone setting, then the TZ environment variable), and only uses UTC if neither yields a valid identifier.

How it works

Display Logic

Time Control: Bar displays only within configured date range
AJAX Awareness: Automatically hidden during AJAX requests
Page Integration: Injected at the top of the page body
Extension System: Uses Shopware's extension system for clean integration

Message Rotation

One line at a time: Each line of the message is shown in turn, looping continuously
Smooth Transitions: CSS opacity fade between lines, skipped when the visitor prefers reduced motion
Stable Layout: All lines are rendered stacked in a single grid cell, so the bar keeps the width of the longest line and the button does not move while the lines change
Responsive Behavior: The button wraps below the message on narrow viewports

Integration Points

Subscribes to GenericPageLoadedEvent
Adds extension data to page object
Template extends base storefront layout
CSS and JavaScript loaded conditionally

Technical Details

Events Used

GenericPageLoadedEvent - Injects information bar data into page

Data Storage

act_information_bar with translations in act_information_bar_translation, one row per bar plus its texts per language
Appearance and schedule are columns on the bar itself, not system_config

Template Structure

Extends @Storefront/storefront/base.html.twig
Includes custom template for bar rendering
Conditional display based on configuration

JavaScript Features

Renders all message lines once and only toggles their visibility via CSS classes
Hidden lines carry aria-hidden so screen readers announce the visible line only
Continuous loop with configurable display duration

Development

Building/Testing

After making changes:

bin/console cache:clear
bin/console theme:compile

Debugging

Check browser console for JavaScript errors
Verify date settings on the bar
Test with different message lengths
Monitor animation performance in DevTools

Usage Examples

The examples list message and button texts together with the appearance values they go with. All of it is maintained on a bar under Content → Information bar.

Simple Announcement

Message: "Free shipping on orders over €50!"
Full Width: Yes
Background: #28a745
Text Color: #ffffff

Time-Limited Sale

Message: "Black Friday Sale - 30% off everything!"
Start Date: 2024-11-29 00:00:00
End Date: 2024-11-29 23:59:59
Show Button: Yes
Button Text: "Shop Now"
Button URL: /sale

Maintenance Notice

Message: "Scheduled maintenance on Sunday 2am-4am"
Background: #ffc107
Text Color: #000000
Start Date: 2024-03-01 00:00:00
End Date: 2024-03-03 04:00:00

Multiple Rotating Lines

Message:
Free shipping on orders over €50!
New autumn collection available now
Customer service: Mon-Fri 9am-5pm
Display Duration: 4
Show Button: Yes
Button Text: "Learn more"

Each line is shown in turn. The bar reserves the width of the longest line, so the button keeps its position while the lines rotate.

Styling Tips

High Contrast

Dark backgrounds with white text for maximum visibility
Use hex colors for precise control
Test on different devices for readability

Display Duration

Short lines (1-3 seconds)
Longer lines (5-10 seconds so they can be read completely)
Adjust based on message importance

Responsive Design

Bar automatically adjusts to screen width
Text remains readable on mobile devices
Button scales appropriately

Compatibility

Shopware Version: 6.7
PHP Version: 8.4+
Browser Support: All modern browsers (Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Edge)
Mobile: Fully responsive and touch-friendly
Theme Compatibility: Works with all Shopware themes

Known Limitations

Appearance is not translatable. Every language of a bar therefore shares one appearance; only the texts differ. The appearance fields on the detail page are unaffected by the language switch for that reason.
Messages are plain text; HTML markup is not rendered
Very long messages may impact performance
Date/time evaluated against the timezone configured on the defaults page; if unset, it falls back to the server timezone and only uses UTC as a last resort
A colour change is not instant on a live shop. The bar sits in the storefront's main document cache, not in the separately cached header fragment, and saving a bar does not invalidate it. The new colour appears once the HTTP cache TTL expires, or right away after bin/console cache:pool:clear cache.http. No theme:compile is needed either way — that is the point of serving colours as CSS custom properties.
Daylight saving transitions need care. On a spring forward day one wall clock hour does not exist (02:00–02:59 in Europe/Berlin), and a start or end time inside it is silently moved forward by an hour. A window spanning exactly that missing hour collapses to zero length and the bar never appears. On an autumn day the same hour exists twice and is ambiguous. The detail page warns at save time when a date falls on such a day, and separately when the end date is not after the start date; both warnings are advisory and saving proceeds. Schedule around a transition by picking a time outside the affected hour.

Support

For issues and feature requests, please use the GitHub issue tracker.

License

This plugin is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.

Credits

Developed by Actualize

Made with ❤️ for the Shopware Community

actualizer / information-bar

Maintainers

Package info

Statistics

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