feat: remove waffle flags for managing course outline sidebar

[ihor-romaniuk]

DEPR: openedx/public-engineering#316 (comment)

Description

This PR removes support for the deprecated waffle flags:

• courseware.enable_navigation_sidebar
• courseware.always_open_auxiliary_sidebar

These flags have been replaced by PluginSlots introduced in PR #1543, available starting from the Teak release.

The default behavior is now:

• Navigation sidebar is shown by default
• Auxiliary sidebar is closed by default

All customization should now be handled via the Frontend Plugin Framework using PluginSlot.

This change simplifies the sidebar logic and reduces technical debt.

Testing Instructions

1. Open a course in courseware view.
2. Confirm the following:
   • Navigation sidebar is visible.
   • Auxiliary sidebar is hidden unless triggered explicitly.
3. Ensure the behavior remains the same regardless of any waffle flag presence or value.
4. Validate that plugin-based sidebar overrides via PluginSlot still function correctly.

Changelog

• Removed legacy waffle flags: courseware.enable_navigation_sidebar, courseware.always_open_auxiliary_sidebar.
• Unified sidebar behavior under plugin-based architecture.

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[codecov]

Codecov Report

✅ All modified and coverable lines are covered by tests.
✅ Project coverage is 90.33%. Comparing base (d1dede5) to head (ead604f).
⚠️ Report is 28 commits behind head on master.

Additional details and impacted files

@@            Coverage Diff             @@
##           master    #1713      +/-   ##
==========================================
- Coverage   90.45%   90.33%   -0.12%     
==========================================
  Files         344      344              
  Lines        5802     5793       -9     
  Branches     1395     1394       -1     
==========================================
- Hits         5248     5233      -15     
- Misses        535      541       +6     
  Partials       19       19              

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[brian-smith-tcril]

I haven't taken a full look at this yet, but my first impressions are that it is looking pretty good.

Would you be able to break off the part adding the SequenceNavigationSlot into a separate PR? I'd be happy to review/approve/merge that ASAP!

[ihor-romaniuk]

@brian-smith-tcril I prepared new pull request with moving the SequenceNavigation to a plugin slot
#1716

[open-craft-grove]

Sandbox deployment successful 🚀
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[robrap]

Unless I’m mistaken, this is a removal PR for a DEPR that hasn’t made it to the Breaking Changes Unblocked state. I think the DEPR ticket may need a coordinator from the DEPR WG assigned to help ensure the changes move forward without hurting deployments, especially early deployers. Thank you.

I’m temporarily marking with Request Changes to ensure this doesn’t merge yet.

[feanil]

I've updated the DEPR and am seeking feedback on timing in https://discuss.openedx.org/t/deprecation-ability-to-modify-learning-mfe-sidebar-behavior-with-waffle-flags/15119/4?u=feanil

Given that the replacement has existed for some time and there were no objections, I'm proposing we land this by next week, please chime in on the DEPR ticket or the discuss thread about concerns with that timing.

@ihor-romaniuk thanks for the PR, sorry about the DEPR process churn, we're in the middle of changing that process so there is a bit of adapting we have to do.

[open-craft-grove]

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[open-craft-grove]

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[open-craft-grove]

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[brian-smith-tcril]

• It seems like ENABLE_SEQUENCE_NAVIGATION is new, was a specific decision made to use getConfig() for this as opposed to relying on FPF slots?
• The logic here feels backwards, as it stands it seems SequenceNavigation is rendered when getConfig().ENABLE_SEQUENCE_NAVIGATION is falsy.

[ihor-romaniuk]

1. You are right. The ENABLE_SEQUENCE_NAVIGATION config is new, and its main purpose is to allow this functionality to remain disabled by default, since as far as I know, we cannot keep a plugin slot disabled by default.
2. That was my mistake, and it has been fixed.

[brian-smith-tcril]

The goal here would not be to enable/disable the slot - the slot should always be rendered. The goal is to render nothing in the slot by default.

The way I would handle this using only FPF slots would be to:

• Keep the SequenceNavigation in the codebase, but no longer have it as the default content of the SequenceNavigationSlot.
• Update the SequenceNavigationSlot README to include an example env.config.jsx showing how to use the SequenceNavigation component in the SequenceNavigationSlot

[ihor-romaniuk]

I have updated pull request with:

• set default (empty) state to SequenceNavigationSlot
• add an example of usage SequenceNavigationSlot with a default SequenceNavigation component
• update tests (code coverage is a bit lower since we removed the SequenceNavigation component from the code and I don't think it needs to be tested separately since it's an option we don't use by default)

[open-craft-grove]

Sandbox deployment successful 🚀
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[ihor-romaniuk]

@brian-smith-tcril I’ve reverted the recent changes related to the plugin slot version bump. The PR is now ready for review.

[open-craft-grove]

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[open-craft-grove]

Sandbox deployment successful 🚀
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[brian-smith-tcril]

@ihor-romaniuk it looks like code coverage for this change is quite low. I see that some tests have been removed. Could you look into updating some of those tests instead of removing them?

[ihor-romaniuk]

@ihor-romaniuk it looks like code coverage for this change is quite low. I see that some tests have been removed. Could you look into updating some of those tests instead of removing them?

@brian-smith-tcril I’ve updated the tests and excluded unused methods from the Codecov coverage report, as these handlers are passed solely to support the props required by the plugin slot, though they are not used by default.

[open-craft-grove]

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[brian-smith-tcril]

LGTM!

Thank you for your patience with the review process!

[open-craft-grove]

Sandbox deployment successful 🚀
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[nsprenkle]

A note that this probably should have come with a ! indicating breaking change. The renaming of the plugin slot breaks existing configurations for the sidebar slot.

[brian-smith-tcril]

The renaming of the plugin slot

What renaming of the plugin slot? The ids are still:

• org.openedx.frontend.learning.sequence_navigation.v1
• org.openedx.frontend.learning.course_breadcrumbs.v1 (with alias course_breadcrumbs_slot)
• org.openedx.frontend.learning.unit_title.v1 (with alias unit_title_slot)