I sware this should be easier than it looks, i simply cannot find how to do this? ive looked through the forums, all the documentation, please tell me im blind.

How do you add a custom tab into the CMS with a content area the same as the first tab?

Cheers

Have a look at tutorial 2: Extending a basic site: http://doc.silverstripe.com/doku.php?id=tutorial:2-extending-a-basic-site

For some reason, this isnt creating the tab 'RightCol'. Ive read the tutorial 3 times.

class HomePage extends Page {
    static $db = array(
        'SideText' => 'HTMLText'
    );
}

class HomePage_Controller extends Page_Controller {
    function getCMSFields() {
        $fields = parent::getCMSFields();	
        $fields->addFieldToTab('Root.Content.RightCol', new TextField('SideText'));		
        return $fields;
    }
}

can anyone tell me why this isnt working?

Hi
You have specified the data-type of db field SideText as HTMLText but then declared a new form-field of the type TextField. This should really be of the type HTMLEditorField if you want the form to display HTML.
That might be why the tab isn't being rendered...

Thanks for all the help guys, i simply had the getCMSFields function under the wrong class.