View blog menu item

[Mayhemmad]

It would be great if a menu item to view the site was available. A suggested location would be above the logout button named 'View' and suggested shortcut would be 'V'.

This would work best with a plugin or core modification to include the menu in the blog so it could be used to jump quickly between the blog and admin.

Additionally if editing a post the view blog menu item could link to the post in question. This would allow quick previewing of edits made.

[msi]

What is wrong with the link in the upper right corner? ;-) It does say "My Habari" by default or your site's name.

[Mayhemmad]

It doesn't have an associated shortcut. I envision jumping from admin to the site and back again through the shortcut keys.

[arthus]

I think that the link in the top right is acceptable for ordinary use. I don't think we should clutter up the main menu with extra items which aren't entirely needed.

That being said, I'm sure some people would find this functionality useful. Therefore, I suggest it be implemented as a plugin. I have opened a ticket on -extras for this.

http://trac.habariproject.org/habari-extras/ticket/67

[miklb]

I think this suggestion is worthy of more discussion, and shouldn't be closed as wontfix so quickly.

[arthus]

Replying to miklb:

I think this suggestion is worthy of more discussion, and shouldn't be closed as wontfix so quickly.

The original reporter of the ticket agreed we should put this in a plugin.

[Heilemann]

I don't think it should be part of the menu, but a shortcut key would probably be a good idea.

[msi]

Is there a place where we can talk about the menu? I am asking because of #629. skippy wrote

Otherwise, every plugin under the sun will add menu items

What else can I do to include (for example) an editor or a simple page displaying something, my plugin does? I currently use a dashboard module but I am not happy with it because you have to go back to the dashboard to call another function of my plugin. And this is silly.

I would like to have some kind of a taskbar (or whatever you want to call it), always present in the admin area, hookable by plugins and (maybe!) customizable in the user's profile. A button set (not actually buttons, more like CSS styled links, with/without icons) with links to get to the comments, to write a post, etc. The basic tasks.

The main menu can keep the rest of the stuff. The logs, the profiles, the themes, etc.

[Heilemann]

The menu was never meant to be modifiable by plugins, because it would a) get messy fast and thus become confusing to use and b) it doesn't scale well.

Can you expand on what it is you need to do? Then I might be able to give you a better answer.

[msi]

Yes, I can. Just two examples. I created some kind of a privacy plugin to delete the IP addresses in all comments. It is a port of a plugin, I use in WordPress. The plugin also has a simple page with an information and a button. Pressing the button means to delete the IP addresses and (optional) the websites immediately. I need a space to display a link or a command to open that page.

And I created a blogroll plugin because I like the link category feature in WordPress (different subjects where you can sort your links in). I have some details to do, but it works and I can import my WP links including their categories. Of course, I need the possibility to display both the commands to create new links and categories and to display the existing links and categories.

I guess, other plugin authors will have the same question if they see a need to create new tasks, pages or whatever.

[Heilemann]

Alright, well you know that plugins can add commands to the dropbuttons on the plugins page right? And that they can have open inline 'config windows' on the plugins page. Does that cover the privacy plugin?

For the links, it sounds as if it's really a new content type. Now I don't know the details for how you go about creating those, but both the creating and management of content is already an integral part of the admin system, so there's no need for you to go out of your way to create new pages to deal with it.

But you should talk to someone who knows more about content types than I do.

Let me know if I'm missing something.

[msi]

Replying to Heilemann:

Alright, well you know that plugins can add commands to the dropbuttons on the plugins page right? And that they can have open inline 'config windows' on the plugins page. Does that cover the privacy plugin?

It is worth a try, actually. Thanks for the idea.

For the links, it sounds as if it's really a new content type. [...]

It is the same problem, though. The more content types, the more menu entries. I do not see a difference.

[michaeltwofish]

Replying to msi:

Replying to Heilemann:

For the links, it sounds as if it's really a new content type. [...]

It is the same problem, though. The more content types, the more menu entries. I do not see a difference.

Creation and management of content types are likely to be under Create and Manage submenus at some point, so making it a content type will keep it tidier.

[Heilemann]

What he said :)

[arthus]

in r2489, a hotkey was added. This, with the link in the top right, should be sufficient.