Make managing your WordPress dashboard easier with Admin Drop Down Menus plugin
September 3, 2007 – 12:21 pm | by Miriam SchwabIf you’re a WordPress blogger who posts one new post every few days, you might not mind the default navigation menu in the admin/dashboard. But once your blogging volume increases, and you’re writing posts, pages, and managing comments and plugins, it becomes annoying that the most common actions, like writing a new post, take two clicks: one on Write, and another on Write Post.
I’ve tried a few plugins that change the WordPress admin, but all of them had one problem or another. Thanks to Tal Galili, I’ve found what seems to the be the perfect solution: Admin Drop Down Menus from Yellow Swordfish.
This plugin changes the default navigation into a drop-down menu, so you can easily select the option you want without clicking multiple times. It has two limitations:
- It needs Javascript to work - not so serious.
- You won’t be able to see who’s subscribed to comments if you use the Subscribe to Comments plugin - it’s not this plugin’s fault, but the fault of the Subscribe to Comments plugin. This is explained in the Read Me file.
Despite the above, it seems to be worth it - this can save you tons of time and annoying clicks-and-waits.I don’t know if I’ll ever go back.
Update: Hannit at Achi Dakar has Hebraicized this plugin for users of the Hebrew WordPress installation.
7 Responses to “Make managing your WordPress dashboard easier with Admin Drop Down Menus plugin”
By Dakar on Sep 3, 2007 | Reply
I agree with you, this is a great one.
I’ve already “RTLed” the optional CSS that is avaliable on the site and intend to offer it for download both to the plugin developer and to my readers - will probably be released tomorrow.
By Miriam on Sep 3, 2007 | Reply
Hannit - how excellent! That will be really helpful to right-to-left bloggers.
By Ryan on Sep 4, 2007 | Reply
I wonder if that works with the WP Tiger Administration (http://orderedlist.com/wordpress-plugins/wp-tiger-administration/)?
I hate the default skin on the admin interface. It’s very ugly IMO.
By Miriam on Sep 4, 2007 | Reply
Ryan - I installed Tiger Admin at one point, and then had to uninstall it because something wasn’t working quite right - I don’t know what. But in my opinion this plugin fixes the main problem with the WordPress admin, and that is the annoying multi-click nav bar. Once that is fixed, the rest seems pretty ok.
By Ryan on Sep 4, 2007 | Reply
To answer my own question … yep, it does work with Tiger Admin, but you lose the left side menu bar and get a blank space which looks a little silly. I’ve now uninstalled Tiger Admin as this is a definite improvement. Thanks for the good plugin
One minor quibble … why the heck do I need to go into a dropdown to choose from 1/1 options? ie: the “Dashboard” dropdown. I’d prefer if those were left as a simple button. Although I don’t use the dashboard anyway so it’s a moot point.