DASH – 3.8 proposal

Prerequisite: Must have latest version of MP6 installed and activated.
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 link: https://github.com/growthdesigner/wp-dash

Visual comparison

The existing dashboard (the page you see by default when you log into WordPress) looks like this:

It hasn’t been touched in years, leaving it feeling a tad bloated, and dated. Here’s what the dashboard looks like with our plugin enabled:

What’s changed?

We tackled 5 major areas, and made them each separate includes within our plugin (separate php, js, and css files).

  • We combined “WordPress Blogblog (versus network, site)”, “Other WordPress News”, and “Plugins” to form the new simplified “WordPress News” plugin.
  • We merged “Recent Comments” into the new “Activity” 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., which now also shows you any scheduled posts and your most recently published posts.
  • We converted “QuickPress” into “Quick Drafts” putting the emphasis more on drafting ideas than publishing, and we merged in “Recent Drafts”.
  • We removed the “Number of columns” screen option. Instead the dashboard is now responsive, and shows the appropriate number of columns based on your screen resolution.
  • The Right Now widget was visually reduced.

Here are a few extras:

  • We removed incoming links (which doesn’t seem to really work anymore).
  • We replaced the “Dashboard” H2 title with a fun group of friendly welcome text and idioms.
  • We added a bunch more hooksHooks In WordPress theme and development, hooks are functions that can be applied to an action or a Filter in WordPress. Actions are functions performed when a certain event occurs in WordPress. Filters allow you to modify certain functions. Arguments used to hook both filters and actions look the same. for greater extensibility from any of the dashboard widgets.
  • There’s a fun little smiley if you delete all posts and comments

What problem is your feature pluginFeature Plugin A plugin that was created with the intention of eventually being proposed for inclusion in WordPress Core. See Features as Plugins. trying to solve?

While functional, WordPress’ dashboard page hasn’t kept up with the rest of WordPress. We mean to improve the experience of the first page of WordPress. Streamline it, clean it up looking at all the widgets, and make it responsive.

We’d also love to see future development in the new activity widget, where plugin developers can add more “activity stream” related content.

What other potential solutions did you explore?

If you work backwards through https://make.wordpress.org/ui/tag/dash/ you’ll get a pretty good idea. We met weekly in IRC, and brainstormed/iterated daily via our Skype channel.

Have you done user testing?

Nope, but if this get’s the “all clear”, we’re more than happy to do that.

#3-8, #core-plugins, #dashboard, #feature-plugins, #proposal