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Tabs

Tabs group the fields of a block or a table. One block with twenty fields is a wall; the same block with four tabs is four short forms.

Tabs belong to the block or table they were created in — PageBlocks → Constructor, the block, then its tabs.

What a tab holds

SettingWhat it does
NameThe tab caption
DescriptionText shown above the fields on that tab
OrderPosition among the tabs
PublishedAn unpublished tab is not rendered

That is all there is to it. The work happens on the field side: each field points at the tab it belongs to.

Fields without a tab

A field with no tab is shown before the tabs, always visible. That is where the two or three fields that matter on every save belong — a title, a switch — so nobody has to go looking for them.

A block with no tabs at all is just a flat form, which is the right shape for a block with four fields.

What tabs are not

They are not access control. A tab hides fields from the eye, not from the request: the form submits everything, and an unpublished tab is simply not rendered. Use permissions to decide who sees a block at all.

Unpublishing a tab does not unpublish its fields

The fields keep their own state and their data. Re-publish the tab and everything is back where it was — which makes a tab a convenient way to put a half-finished group of fields aside without losing anything.

A shape that works

For a block that describes a page section:

TabWhat goes there
(no tab)Heading, the on/off switch
ContentText, image, button
SettingsLayout, colour, spacing
SEOTitle, description

The manager fills the first two, opens the third occasionally and the fourth almost never — and never scrolls past a setting they do not need.

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