Two key principles of ensuring a strong authoring experience in a CMS is (1) reducing the amount of time it takes to find something and (2) allowing authors to focus on content rather than being distracted by the CMS.

Many of clients make extensive use of a Dictionary of editable values for chrome content such as field titles, button text, and other elements that don’t require frequent edits but should not necessarily be hardcoded.  However, in a Sitecore workflow-enabled environment, non-admins will often not have access the System folder where Dictionary natively resides. While it may be updated less frequently, Dictionary content is content just the same. It should not require drilling through a tree structure to find it. It is possible to expose the “Dictionary” in the Content Editor tray alongside “Media Library” and “Workbox” so that authors may easily access and update Dictionary item values as necessary.

Before:

After:

Steps for Adding the Dictionary to the Content Editor Tray:

1. Login as an Admin and access the Sitecore Desktop.
2. Click on the Database icon at the bottom right and select ‘Core’ database.
3. Return to the Content Editor and navigate to sitecore\content\Applications\Content Editor\Applications. These are the default items that you would normally see here – Content Editor, Media Library, and Workbox.
4. Add an item to represent your new “tab” in the tray.
5. Name it “Dictionary” and set the following values:
   1. Header = Dictionary
   2. Source = /sitecore/shell/Applications/Content Manager/Default.aspx?mo=media&ro=/sitecore/system/Dictionary&he=Dictionary&ic=People/16×16/book_red.png

Tip: Don’t forget to add (or ask your developer to add) these configuration changes to the core project for propagation to each environment.