I am developing a Designer Extension that communicates with a server and interacts with the Webflow Data API. During this process, I can successfully create new collections. However, I am unable to immediately connect these new collections in the Webflow Designer without manually reloading the Designer.
Is there a way to programmatically refresh or update the Collection Lists within the Designer so that the new collections become available without requiring a full page reload?
The Image shows only two CMS Collection while i already created a third after reloading the complete page it shows all three. How to reload CMS Items without refreshing the Page?
Currently, Webflow’s Designer doesn’t offer a direct way to refresh CMS Collection Lists programmatically without a full page reload. However, you can implement a polling mechanism in your extension to periodically check for new collections via the Webflow CMS API, ensuring your custom UI reflects the latest data. Alternatively, you could try injecting JavaScript to trigger a soft refresh of specific frames within the Designer, though this may not always work consistently. Another option is submitting a feature request to Webflow to add this functionality. For now, a good approach could be notifying users to manually refresh the Designer after new collections are created, providing a clearer experience. I’d be happy to help you further if required.
Would a Designer API be useful here to “refresh” the CMS UI in the Designer? Our team is currently discussing ways we could surface this functionality.
Separately in the meantime, I’d recommend to your users to click the new “Refresh” button on the CMS UI (screenshot below). This will refresh the CMS updates made by the Data API so that the collection list could read for a new collection made for example, all without a full-page refresh.
