WordPress UI Idea: Menu Item Sorting and Renaming

Don’t like the proposed WordPress 2.7 menu structure? Why not make it sortable and with ability to rename top-level menu items so that those who still prefer Manage and Write instead of Posts and Pages can have it.

WordPress Dashboard menu sorting and renaming

WordPress Dashboard menu sorting and renaming

Here is how it works:

  • Select Customize Menu button at the bottom of menu to enable editing and sorting.
  • Click on top-level menu item to edit the label.
  • Click on top-level menu outside the label text (on the arrow, for example) to collapse/expand menu while still in edit mode.
  • Use drag-and-drop to sort menu items (including the top-level ones).

What do you think?

9 Comments

  1. Andrew says:

    Kaspars, I love that as an idea, you should definitely write a plugin for that.

    I think it is not something that should be in the core though, just because I think it needs to start being weeded a little instead of being added to.

  2. Kaspars says:

    Andrew, I am glad you like it, and I agree with you that this shouldn’t be in the core. However to enable this feature as a plugin, the menu can’t be hardcoded as it currently is.

  3. Ozh says:

    The menu renaming stuff is a great idea. It *can* be written as a plugin, actually I think I’ll steal this idea when I update my Admin Drop Down Menus for 2.7

  4. Kaspars says:

    Ozh, it’s great to hear that you are actually willing to update your plugin for 2.7 after such a radical UI change. Are you planing to make it drop-right instead of drop-down?

    Regarding the menu renaming stuff — would you do it through javascript or is there a more elegant way of doing it?

  5. Ozh says:

    I’ll update it because I think I simply hate the new UI menu logic, and I’m my primary target user :)
    It will definitely have drop down menus, as they are IMHO much more elegant and usable and real estate savers, but I might have a look at other options too.

    Regarding renaming, JS is totally an option, or you could hack $menu and $submenu like I’m doing in my plugin.

  6. Kaspars says:

    Ozh, sounds excellent. Let me know when you have something ready for testing or if you need any assistance with the CSS stuff.

  7. Lefteris says:

    I love your admin interface. It gives all the information you need and it’s easy to use. It would make a very popular plugin.

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