Suggestion for new admin menu structure

[Michael Heilemann]

First off, I know there are several threads that touch on this, but
they've all become poluted, and this requires clarity, thus this
thread o' purity and virginity.

I suggest the current 'Create, Manage, Admin' menu's are replaced by a
'Content' and 'Admin', with a structure that looks like this (lines
indicate visual separators in the menu. -- indicates indented menu
items, to group them):

CONTENT
- Create Entry
- Create Page
-------------------
- Entries
- Pages
- Tags
-------------------
- All Comments
-- Approved Comments
-- Unapproved Comments
-- Spam
-------------------
- Import

ADMIN
- Activity
- Habari Options
- Themes
- Plugins
- Users

Habari exists to create and manage content, this CONTENT is self-
explanatory. To do so, Habari must be a system, and that system must
be administrable, obviously, with ADMIN.

Now, clicking either of the two will bring you to the top-most page in
the menu structure (Content is Create Entry and Admin is Activity).

Activity is basically the dashboard. Though in this setup, it also
replaces and takes over all functionality from the 'logs' item.
Activity seems more descriptive than 'dashboard', and ensures a broad
understanding of its purpose (whereas, in comparison, no-one really
knows what WP's dashboard is supposed to be).

I suggest a setting where you can choose your default admin page. I
personally prefer 'Create Entry', but some prefer 'Activity', others
might want 'Unapproved Comments'.

Finally, and this will be visible in a mockup I'm submitting later
tonight, I suggest removing the house icon and keep the name of the
blog left-aligned and linking to the blog proper.

Does this make sense to everyone? Did I miss anything?

[Michael Bishop]

On Nov 18, 1:56 pm, Michael Heilemann <heilem...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Activity is basically the dashboard. Though in this setup, it also
> replaces and takes over all functionality from the 'logs' item.
> Activity seems more descriptive than 'dashboard', and ensures a broad
> understanding of its purpose (whereas, in comparison, no-one really
> knows what WP's dashboard is supposed to be).
>

I'm a minus one on this, simply because the logs can be very detailed,
and plugins have yet to scratch the surface of this feature. I like a
snapshot of basic entries on the overview page however.

> I suggest a setting where you can choose your default admin page. I
> personally prefer 'Create Entry', but some prefer 'Activity', others
> might want 'Unapproved Comments'.

I'd be fine with that, as long as it defaults to the overview page on
install.


~miklb

[Sean T. Evans]

Here are the flaws I see right off, and they're minor.
Consistancy: Clicking "content" takes you to the first item in the
content menu, whereas clicking "admin" takes you to something that's not
accessable elsewhere. I also fee that due to the flexibility of our
logging system, a lot of information can be missed if the current
dashboard setup is the only source of that information. Some admins may
wish to be able to see what's going on "behind the scenes" as it were.

I also feel like it would be nice to try to make each action on the menu
a verb, rather than a noun. ie "Create Entry", "Moderate Comments",
"Review Logs", "Manage Themes", etc. That's just a personal preference
though, but I feel it makes it very specific in terms of "What am I
doing when I follow this link?"

I do love the idea of having the default admin page user selectable.

[Owen Winkler]

On Nov 18, 2007 2:06 PM, Michael Bishop <miklb....@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On Nov 18, 1:56 pm, Michael Heilemann <heilem...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Activity is basically the dashboard. Though in this setup, it also
> > replaces and takes over all functionality from the 'logs' item.
> > Activity seems more descriptive than 'dashboard', and ensures a broad
> > understanding of its purpose (whereas, in comparison, no-one really
> > knows what WP's dashboard is supposed to be).
> >
>
> I'm a minus one on this, simply because the logs can be very detailed,
> and plugins have yet to scratch the surface of this feature. I like a
> snapshot of basic entries on the overview page however.

I agree. I want to see the last few entries on the overview page, but
it's very important to be able to troubleshoot by searching through
the logs with detailed criteria. This is something that only the log
view page does currently, and I'm not sure it's appropriate for the
top-level overview page.

Apart from that one item, I think this menu structure is pleasing.

Regarding the default admin page, I have only one thought: Bookmark
your Create Entry page. The overview page seems like a sensible
default.

When I start my thought process of "time to blog" I always open both
the dashboard and the create post page. I'm weird, I know.

Owen

[Andrew da Silva]

I admit "dashboard" is not a proper term, it's more of an overview.

Here's how I see the menu's structure:

Overview
Create
- Post
- Page
Manage
- Content (Tabs: Published, Drafts)
- Comments (Tabs: Accepted, Unaccepted, Spam)
--
- Accounts (Tabs: Users, Groups, Permissions)
- Event Logs
--
- Import/Export
Configure
- Plugins
- Themes
- Settings

We've been testing tabs, and I think it would work perfectly.

I just think each menu item should be explicit, admin is very vague
for me.

What I'ld like for the overview is to be manageable/extendable kind of
like Joomla! does it, assign spots and have the users choose what goes
where.

On Nov 18, 1:56 pm, Michael Heilemann <heilem...@gmail.com> wrote:

[khaled Abou Alfa]

I'm only dubious on the amount of items that we'll have in the drop down menus that they might become too crowded, 10 items in a drop down menu does seem like a bit too much. Having said that I'm keen to see what you think this will all look like in the end. I'm all for trying to keep it as brief and concise as possible so I'm +1 for trimming any and all fat.

With regards to dashboard, yeah all for renaming to overview.

As for having additional tabs within pages themselves, seems superfluous to me. But again that's just my opinion.

[Michael Heilemann]

Alright, with logs back in, this is how it would look:

CONTENT

- Create Entry

- Create Page

-------------------

- Entries

- Pages

- Tags

-------------------

- All Comments

-- Approved Comments

-- Unapproved Comments

-- Spam

-------------------

- Import

ADMIN

- Activity (read: Dashboard)

- Habari Options

- Themes

- Plugins

- Users

- Logs

 

Regarding the default admin page, I have only one thought:  Bookmark

your Create Entry page.  The overview page seems like a sensible
default.

Bookmark makes sense, of course, except I always access BB's admin manually, so... :)

Andrew, can you provide some screenshots of what you mean when you refer to Joomla!?

 

[Scott Merrill]

Michael Heilemann wrote:
> CONTENT
...
> - Import

I think the Import option is the one place where a plugin should
register a new top-level menu item. Since the importers are plugins, it
doesn't make sense to me to dedicate a top-level menu item to something
that might never be used (ie: a new blog with no legacy content to import).

Moreover, since the Import process should -- ideally -- import content
_and_ users, I don't think "content" is the best place for it.

Otherwise, I think I'd be perfectly comfortable with this menu structure.

Cheers,
Scott

--
GPG 9CFA4B35 | ski...@skippy.net | http://skippy.net/

[Owen Winkler]

On Nov 18, 2007 3:02 PM, Scott Merrill <ski...@skippy.net> wrote:
>
> I think the Import option is the one place where a plugin should
> register a new top-level menu item. Since the importers are plugins, it
> doesn't make sense to me to dedicate a top-level menu item to something
> that might never be used (ie: a new blog with no legacy content to import).

Importers are plugins. To begin an import, you must have a plugin
installed. One might suggest that the menu shouldn't exist unless an
import plugin (any import plugin) is enabled. But then how do you
know that you must enable the import plugin to get the menu to appear?
Hence the current logic of the Import page directing you to the
plugins page when you have no import plugins enabled.

Can we assume that a user will figure out they need a plugin to do
importing, and so only enable that menu option if an import plugin is
enabled? This leads back to a point I was making on IRC earlier,
which was that if the installer had an additional step that allowed
you to enable plugins during the installation, this would be less of
an issue.

Plugins should never register a main navigation, not even for
importing. Registering a plugin would allow a plugin to circumvent
permissions set to disallow imports. By funneling all import plugin
functionality through the system as-is, permissions can be applied
globally to all importers.

> Moreover, since the Import process should -- ideally -- import content
> _and_ users, I don't think "content" is the best place for it.

That's fine, especially when you consider that this is more of an
administrative feature - not everyone should be able to execute
imports. If you mean to imply that the "admin" main menu is the
better location, I agree with that. A top-level navigation item for
importing seems a bit much, though.

Owen

[Michael Heilemann]

> This leads back to a point I was making on IRC earlier,
> which was that if the installer had an additional step that allowed
> you to enable plugins during the installation, this would be less of
> an issue.

Quicksilver for OS X does this (showing you a list of all available
plugins, downloading them as you activate them), and it works great.

PS: I posted mockups of these menus:
http://flickr.com/photos/heilemann/2044077889/in/set-72157603227434486/

[Christopher Davis]

I am all for as Khaled says "trimming the fat" so I am excited to see
how this will look. I also agree with Owen's suggestion about
enabling plugins during install. I would go one step further and say
we should have an import step to the installer, option of course.

Chris

[Scott Merrill]

Owen Winkler wrote:
> On Nov 18, 2007 3:02 PM, Scott Merrill <ski...@skippy.net> wrote:
>> I think the Import option is the one place where a plugin should
>> register a new top-level menu item. Since the importers are plugins, it
>> doesn't make sense to me to dedicate a top-level menu item to something
>> that might never be used (ie: a new blog with no legacy content to import).
>
> Importers are plugins. To begin an import, you must have a plugin
> installed. One might suggest that the menu shouldn't exist unless an
> import plugin (any import plugin) is enabled. But then how do you
> know that you must enable the import plugin to get the menu to appear?
> Hence the current logic of the Import page directing you to the
> plugins page when you have no import plugins enabled.

Are you opposed to the use of documentation for describing the import
process? I don't think it's too onerous to expect a user to peruse the
documentation to find out how to import.

>> Moreover, since the Import process should -- ideally -- import content
>> _and_ users, I don't think "content" is the best place for it.
>
> That's fine, especially when you consider that this is more of an
> administrative feature - not everyone should be able to execute
> imports. If you mean to imply that the "admin" main menu is the
> better location, I agree with that. A top-level navigation item for
> importing seems a bit much, though.

I don't disagree that importing is an administrative task, and requires
administrative privileges.

I would prefer it if the import menu were only available if an import
plugin were activated.

[Scott Merrill]

Michael Heilemann wrote:
> ADMIN
> - Activity (read: Dashboard)

I think a lot of users like the idea of an overview snapshot of their
site: total posts, comments, recent log entries, etc. I also like the
idea that users can define where to go when they access "/admin" without
anything else specified. That ought not be too hard a thing to code, no?

I realized this morning that on all the comment administration pages we
show a snapshot of current comment counts (approved, unapproved, and
spam) in a sidebar of sorts. Is there a reason we're not doing the same
thing on the content administration page? Could we insert a small
sidebar to show total posts, total YOUR posts, total your drafts?

Further, should these status indicators be live links to the relevant
bits? For example, in the comment sidebar, the "Total Spam Comments"
could be a link to the spam administration page.

[Caius Durling]

On 19 Nov 2007, at 14:36, Scott Merrill wrote:

> Could we insert a small
> sidebar to show total posts, total YOUR posts, total your drafts?

Please only show my posts if more than one user exists in the system
though, otherwise the total posts and my post count will be repeated
information ;)

Sounds like a good idea though, I do like my statistics to be
presented to me often :)

C
____________________________________

Caius Durling
UK Student -- +44 (0) 7960 268100
ca...@caius.name -- nemo...@mac.com
http://caius.name/ -- http://hentan.eu
____________________________________

[Michael Heilemann]

I've submitted an issue describing how this new menu structure ought
to look IMHO: http://code.google.com/p/habari/issues/detail?id=495