# Purposes & preferences

{% hint style="info" %}
This section relates to [Preferences widgets](https://gitlab.com/didomi/developers-documentation/-/blob/main/docs/api-and-platform/widgets/privacy-widgets/edit-a-widget/broken-reference/README.md) only.
{% endhint %}

A widget is built with **entities**.

You can choose a widget type when creating a widget, allowing you to select one or all selected purposes and preferences from the Configuration Tree. For every element selected including its children (purpose, preference and preference value), an entity is created.

They are needed for either [enabling / disabling](#hide-display-an-entity) or [reordering](#reorder-entities-within-a-widget) certains part of the tree within a widget.

### **Get a list of entities**

To retrieve a list of entities, send a **GET** request on `/widgets/preferences-centers/layout-entities`.

To retrieve an entity of a specific widget, add `widget_id` query to following **GET** request with `id` of your widget.

```json
GET https://api.didomi.io/widgets/preferences-centers/layout-entities?organization_id=YOUR_ORG_ID&widget_id=YOUR_WIDGET_ID

[
    {
        "id": "String",
        "created_at": "Date",
        "updated_at": "Date",
        "parent_id": null,
        "selected_purpose_id": "String" || null,
        "selected_preference_id": "String" || null,
        "preference_value_id": "String" || null,
        "layout_component_id": "String",
        "enabled": false,
        "organization_id": "String",
        "widget_id": "String",
        "order": 0
    }
]
```

### Hide / Display an entity

To hide or display an entity, send a **PATCH** request on `/widgets/preferences-centers/layout-entities/{id}`.

```json
PATCH https://api.didomi.io/widgets/preferences-centers/layout-entities/{id}?organization_id=YOUR_ORG_ID

{
    /**
    * true: entity is displayed
    * false: entity is hidden
    */
    "enabled": true || false
}
```

### Hide / Display multiple entities

To hide or display multiple entities, send a **PATCH** request on `/widgets/preferences-centers/layout-entities`.

```json
PATCH https://api.didomi.io/widgets/preferences-centers/layout-entities?organization_id=YOUR_ORG_ID
[
    {
        "id": "layoutEntityID",
        /**
        * true: entity is displayed
        * false: entity is hidden
        */
        "enabled": true || false
    }
]
```

### Reorder entities within a widget

First of all, keep in mind you can reorder entities that belong to the same level of nesting within your widget. When reordering one entity, you need to reorder its direct siblings (with the same `parent_id`) in order to avoid having siblings with the same order.

To reorder entities, send a **PATCH** request on `/widgets/preferences-centers/layout-entities`.

```json
PATCH https://api.didomi.io/widgets/preferences-centers/layout-entities?organization_id=YOUR_ORG_ID
[
    {
        "id": "layoutEntityID",
        "order": 0
    },
    {
        "id": "layoutEntityID",
        "order": 1
    },
    ...
]
```

{% hint style="warning" %}
`preference_value_id` are not unique. What makes a preference value unique is the couple `selected_preference_id` and `preference_value_id` (Mind checking this [section](https://developers.didomi.io/data-manager/configuration-tree#entities-vs-selected-entities) to fully understand how relation between preferences and selected preferences works)

When reordering preference values, make sure to target the right `parent_id` (aka the layout entity linked to the parent preference)
{% endhint %}