I’ve written my first WordPress plugin for the official repository, called Toolbar Quick View. It’s really quite simple, which is the type of plugin I wanted to make as my first.
It’s essentially the same concept as the “+ New” menu items in the WordPress 3.3 toolbar, except that it directs you to the main edit.php screen (or equivalent for non-Post post types), rather than the add new post screen. It essentially eliminates one click from the front end.
I often want to just go to the generic post / page / post_type / etc overview screens, and I find this extra toolbar menu useful. Maybe you will too.
Coding this was pretty darn simple. I essentially stole code from the admin-bar.php file from within WordPress’ wp-includes folder, except I used the new add_node function rather than add_menu to register the new items to the toolbar. My favorite part of this plugin is that it will automatically pick up your custom post types for inclusion in the “View” menu.
I’ve created an information page on this site for Toolbar Quick View for anyone that cares. You can download it from the plugin page on WordPress.org, or of course from your dashboard.
If you have any feedback for improvement, I’d certainly appreciate it. This was fun. I already want to do it again.
Great little plugin, Brian, and congrats on your first one in the repository! I took the liberty of installing it right away to give it a little test drive. Works great! The code looks good too
Woohoo! Thanks, Pippin : )
Cool plugin. Since I’ve started using the admin bar more and more, I’ve been needing this functionality, especially in my dev environment.
The only thing I might do is change “View” to “Edit” to make it more consistent with the WordPress UI. “View” is used in WordPress to view something on the front end, so it makes me think I’ll be viewing post type archives instead of the edit page in the admin.
Thanks! Hmm, good point on the name of the menu. I actually struggled with how to name it. I know it’s called the edit screen, but to me that’s a difficult name to understand, and I didn’t want to confuse it with the “edit post_type” button right next to it. I always call those pages “Admin archives” to people in the office – which is perhaps pretty silly… I really don’t know.
Also, I considered making it jump to the front end archives when on the admin, the same way the “site name” menu works, but I’d have to first check if it has archives, so things like pages and users wouldn’t show up on the admin side and have nowhere to go. I just haven’t decided whether that’s a good idea or not.
Thanks for the feedback. I’ll have to think about what a better name for it would be. I think you’re right “Edit” is the most correct, but I’m afraid that might also confuse others like it does me. Or maybe I’m in left field all by myself : )
Thanks for chiming in Justin, I’m glad you find it useful! I too, like it for my dev environment the most.
How about “manage”? It’s the word I always use when training my clients and it seems to work well as it covers everything – adding, editing, deleting, etc.
Checking it out now. Stumbled upon your blog looking for wooworkers. Congrats on your 1st! Glad I found you
Hi there, i’ve just a released my 1st WordPress plugin too, it uses also the new toolbar to show server’s status. You can download it at my site http://www.tautologicalcode.net and at WordPress repository http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-really-simple-health-10/.
Congrats to you and ciao from Italy
Tiberius14
Hi Brian,
thanks for this handy plugin. Great job!
Do you know by any chance how to add the contextual help button in WP 3.31 to the toolbar?
I need this option for some user who have a hard time finding the help button on the top right corner.
Thanks
Robert