README

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

Requirements

Shopware >=6.7 <6.8, tested with 6.7.16.0
PHP 8.4 or higher

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A bar without a period runs permanently and is superseded by scheduled bars inside their window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
The page cache follows the bar: saving a bar refreshes the cached storefront pages, and a scheduled task refreshes them once a start or end date has passed
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
Optional countdown block per bar (target date, own text once expired, number/label colour, Theme or locally hosted Montserrat font)
Inline formatting in messages (, , ...) and emojis
"Create event bar" button in the countdown card that copies a bar as a starting point for a time-limited event
Live preview of the bar on the detail page
ACL privileges (act_information_bar with viewer/editor/creator/deleter roles)
Multi-language admin interface (German & English)

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. A small set of formatting tags and emojis is allowed (see Formatting below)
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 corner radius: CSS length, e.g. 4px, or 999px for a pill shape. Empty = the theme's button radius
Button Background Color, Button Background Color (Hover): Button background color
Countdown target: Date and time the countdown counts down to, evaluated in the configured timezone. Empty = no countdown (see Countdown below)
Text after expiry: Shown instead of the countdown once the target is reached. Empty = the countdown block disappears. Same formatting rules as the message
Digit colour, Label colour: Colors of the digits and of the labels and colons. Empty = text color (labels slightly dimmed)
Countdown font: Theme font or Montserrat (shipped with the plugin, no external requests)

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 translatable texts (message, expired text, button text, URL and title). 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, schedule and the countdown target are not translatable — they belong to the bar, not to a language.

Formatting

Messages and the expired text may contain the tags  <s> , without attributes. Everything else is removed on save; the admin warns before saving. A lone < or > stays as it is. Emojis (including combined ones) are allowed. Button text and button title are plain text: tags are stripped there.

Known limit: size notations such as " bis " look like tags (<S> becomes strikethrough, <XL> is removed). Write "(S) bis (XL)" instead.

Countdown

The countdown fields live in their own card on the detail page. The countdown block sits next to the rotating text and shows days, hours, minutes and seconds (the days cell is hidden below one day). The text stays mandatory: a bar without a message is not shown, even with a countdown target.

The card warns if the target lies before the start date, if no end date is set, or if the message is empty. Set the end date to the countdown target, otherwise the bar comes back with an expired countdown once a later bar ends.

"Create event bar" at the end of the countdown card copies the saved bar into a new one that starts at the countdown target, with no end date and no countdown target. It is disabled while there are unsaved changes. Set the end date in the copy right away — without it the event bar runs indefinitely.

The live preview on the detail page is an approximation of the storefront rendering; the final look depends on the theme.

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 (including button corner radius, digit and label colour and countdown font, but not the countdown target or the text after expiry), 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 and tags the page with the HTTP cache tag act-information-bar
EntityWrittenContainerEvent - Invalidates that tag when a bar or one of its texts is written or deleted
Scheduled task act_information_bar.schedule_cache (every 5 minutes) - Invalidates the tag when the start or end date of an active bar has passed since the previous run

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: 2026-11-27 00:00:00
End Date: 2026-11-27 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: 2026-02-27 00:00:00
End Date: 2026-03-01 04:00:00

Black Friday with Countdown

Two bars: the first counts down to the start of the sale, the second runs during the sale.

Bar 1 (countdown):

Message: "<b>Black Friday</b> starts in"
Countdown Target: 2026-11-27 00:00:00
Text after expiry: "Now live!"
Start Date: 2026-11-20 00:00:00
End Date: 2026-11-27 00:00:00
Show Button: Yes
Button Text: "Wishlist"
Button URL: /wishlist

Bar 2 (event), created with "Create event bar" in the countdown card of bar 1:

Message: "<b>Black Friday</b> - <mark>30 %</mark> off everything!"
Start Date: 2026-11-27 00:00:00
End Date: 2026-11-30 23:59:59
Show Button: Yes
Button Text: "Shop Now"
Button URL: /sale

Bar 2 starts later than bar 1, so it takes over at the countdown target. "Now live!" bridges the time until the page cache is refreshed (at most 5 minutes).

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

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 allow only a few inline formatting tags (see Formatting); other markup is removed on save
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
Start and end dates take effect with a delay of up to about five minutes on a live shop. Cached pages only notice a passed start or end date when the scheduled task act_information_bar.schedule_cache runs, so the shop's scheduled tasks and message queue have to be running. Changes saved on a bar are visible right away.
The bar is part of every storefront page. Saving a bar, or a passing start or end date, therefore refreshes the cached pages of all sales channels at once.
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.

Changelog

1.7.1

README: the configuration options now list the countdown fields and the button corner radius, and the Black Friday example shows the countdown bar and the event bar.

1.7.0

Countdown, inline formatting, emojis, button corner radius, event bars and live preview (see above).
Message lines are now rendered in Twig. Check template overrides of act-information-bar.html.twig.
On update, a one-time cleanup removes all tags that are not allowed from stored texts (the text in between stays); allowed tags in old data now render as formatting. A fresh install runs the same cleanup.
Theme developers: data-message is removed from the bar and the JS no longer builds the lines. An old override of act-information-bar.html.twig that relies on it shows an empty bar; adapt it to actInformationBar.lines. actInformationBar.message is the cleaned database value and may contain the inline tags (it is not escaped for output; use lines).
With a countdown the bar becomes taller. Check customer themes with a sticky header.
List "Duplicate" now really resets the schedule of the copy.
Smart-bar buttons now have the standard admin size.

Support

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

License

Licensed under MIT, except the Montserrat font files in src/Resources/public/fonts/, which are licensed under the SIL Open Font License 1.1 (see OFL.txt there). See the LICENSE file for the MIT text.

Credits

Developed by Actualize

Made with ❤️ for the Shopware Community

actualizer / information-bar

Package info

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