Dashboard Plugin Update

Progress is slow but steady in dashboard pluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party land. Here’s a recap of our activity for the past week:

IRC chat notes

We held our first IRC chat on Tuesday in #wordpress-ui.

Rather than remove both RSS widgets from coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress., we decided to combine them into one.
Transform “QuickPress” into “QuickDraft”, putting the focus on drafting new ideas quickly seemed to be a hit.
We are going to play with the idea of merging QuickDraft and the “Recent Drafts” widgetWidget A WordPress Widget is a small block that performs a specific function. You can add these widgets in sidebars also known as widget-ready areas on your web page. WordPress widgets were originally created to provide a simple and easy-to-use way of giving design and structure control of the WordPress theme to the user..
Removing the “columns” screen option is likely something we just need to play with. If we can get the implementation right, it could be a nice win I think.
We dropped the “QuickLinks” widget idea. This can stay in plugin territory for now.
We all liked the idea of rethinking the “Right Now” widget. @Joen is going to lead the work on this one.
If we get everything else nailed down in time, we may dig into the design for an “Admin activity” widget focussing specifically on collaboration.

I updated the planning spreadsheet to account for these changes.

Accomplished this week

I started work on a patch to combine “Other WordPress News” and “WordPress Blog” over on #19239. Code reviews/thoughts are welcome and much appreciated.

@joen shared an initial mockup in the IRC chat on Tuesday:

And has since worked on a couple more based on feedback:

Which would work something like this:

Up next

We need your help. Especially developers interested in working on this stuff. The QuickDraft widget work looks to be a fun one to work on. Please pingPing The act of sending a very small amount of data to an end point. Ping is used in computer science to illicit a response from a target server to test it’s connection. Ping is also a term used by Slack users to @ someone or send them a direct message (DM). Users might say something along the lines of “Ping me when the meeting starts.” me on IRC if you’re interested.
We’ll hold another IRC chat this coming Tuesday at Tuesday, September 3rd, 2:00pm UTC in #wordpress-ui.
We’ll be starting up a persistent Skype chat group to discuss all things “dashboard plugin”, ping me if you want in, even if just to lurk. All are welcome.

#dash

George Stephanis 3:08 pm on August 30, 2013

Friendly warning: coloring the left arrow into the menu is feasible, but to make sure the coloring matches up with the page, you need to disable the ‘sticky’ nature of the menu, like we’ve done in Jetpack. — https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/changeset/729476

That’s a bit overly complex to what you’d need to do to handle it, as I had to account for two versions of a page background image, but still. You wouldn’t want the arrow staying green once it floats down to a white part of the page bg.
Joen Asmussen 3:13 pm on August 30, 2013
A couple of quick notes on the mockups. The feedback I mainly focused on in the new mockups were:
- furthering the “Right Now” tweak, particularly with regards to the “Content” part
- rethinking the prime real estate area to emphasize pending posts and drafts
Don’t forget that these are still mockups, subject to change and more importantly: your feedback.
Tom J Nowell 3:18 pm on August 30, 2013

A word on the activity list, this is not a trivial thing to add and far more work than a simple list. You have to store these items, and hook into things, and handle large numbers of log entries, and cleaning up after yourself, etc etc, it’s not a trivial thing to do.

Unless you’re planning to build it I’d remove it as it’s misleading. It’s like throwing in twitter and FB engagement stats in for fun as if it’s nothing then doing a U turn later on when you realise you got to implement all the OAuth etc etc.

Also why the coloured blobs? Can they be turned off or changed?
Till Krüss 1:43 am on August 31, 2013

I’d love to see the recent activity listed in the dashboard!
Hassan 10:01 am on August 31, 2013

These are some refreshing mockups indeed.

What is that colored background on the dashboard? Is this part of the mockup?

Also, I see a stats graph widgetWidget A WordPress Widget is a small block that performs a specific function. You can add these widgets in sidebars also known as widget-ready areas on your web page. WordPress widgets were originally created to provide a simple and easy-to-use way of giving design and structure control of the WordPress theme to the user. in the first screenshot, but not in the others. Please, we need a native stats graph widget… not Jetpack!
- tobifjellner 10:08 am on August 31, 2013
  
  Yes. I’d really like to see some very basic statistics (or rather counters) in the native WP. But nothing that would slow things down or create huge databases of logs.
  - Helen Hou-Sandi 2:03 pm on August 31, 2013
    
    Can’t have both. 🙂
- Joen Asmussen 10:19 am on August 31, 2013
  
  The background is an idea at the moment, and certainly part of the mockup yes. The hope is to bring some color and fun to the dashboard. We’ll see if it survives until the end 🙂
  
  Unfortunately after discussing the proposed stats in IRC during the last opening hours, we won’t be able to offer native stats. We’ll have to make room for 3rd party stats modules. The problem is indeed that it’s too heavy on the servers.
tobifjellner 10:14 am on August 31, 2013

Is it possible to allow the user to select what information he wants to see in the “right now” widgetWidget A WordPress Widget is a small block that performs a specific function. You can add these widgets in sidebars also known as widget-ready areas on your web page. WordPress widgets were originally created to provide a simple and easy-to-use way of giving design and structure control of the WordPress theme to the user.?
Either per-user or per site? The default could be “Let WP guess”.
WP could refresh once a day a pattern variable:
IF (number of pages + number of posts) number of posts THEN “CMS mode”
ELSE “Blog mode”.
- tobifjellner 10:21 am on August 31, 2013
  
  Oops. I used the characters “less than” and “greater than”, which means a substantial chunk of my comment was treated as an invalid tag…
  Try again:
  IF (number of pages + number of posts) is less than 10 THEN “Getting started mode”
  ELSEIF double number of pages is greater than number of posts THEN “CMS mode”
  ELSE “Blog mode”.
- Joen Asmussen 10:21 am on August 31, 2013
  
  Can you elaborate on this a little bit? I’m thinking a lot about how the “Right Now” widgetWidget A WordPress Widget is a small block that performs a specific function. You can add these widgets in sidebars also known as widget-ready areas on your web page. WordPress widgets were originally created to provide a simple and easy-to-use way of giving design and structure control of the WordPress theme to the user. can best serve users, and particularly the “Content” section is tricky: on the one hand it’s just a bunch of numbers that I personally find rather useless. On the other hand, I know a bunch of people who use this specific box as shortcuts to various places in the admin.
  
  What would you like to see?
  - tobifjellner 10:26 am on August 31, 2013
    Different people want to see different things.
    Say, someone helps with moderation of comments but doesn’t edit posts. Then it could be nice to uncheck some options for what this widgetWidget A WordPress Widget is a small block that performs a specific function. You can add these widgets in sidebars also known as widget-ready areas on your web page. WordPress widgets were originally created to provide a simple and easy-to-use way of giving design and structure control of the WordPress theme to the user. should show.
    And there could be some overall settings:
    
    Show everything
    
    Getting started
    
    CMS mode (More information around pages and page drafts)
    
    Blog mode (More information around blog posts and their drafts)
tomdryan 7:15 pm on August 31, 2013

It would be nice to have a small dashboard widgetWidget A WordPress Widget is a small block that performs a specific function. You can add these widgets in sidebars also known as widget-ready areas on your web page. WordPress widgets were originally created to provide a simple and easy-to-use way of giving design and structure control of the WordPress theme to the user. showing a summary of any available coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress./pluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party updates and move the “Update” section down under the Tools menu. Having Updates under the Dashboard menu choice doesn’t make much sense.
Turn On Social 1:17 am on September 1, 2013

I’ll join the skype group

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