On: 2006/01/19
Shorter URL for this page: http://ozh.in/kl

One of the first things I wanted to improve in the admin area of my WordPress blog, back in the 1.5 days, was the header menu. I wanted to be able to reach any admin page in one click, instead of first clicking on the first level link ("Manage" for example) and then only on a submenu link ("Comments") So came a very neat plugin : the WordPress Admin Drop Down Menu

When WordPress 2.7 and its new and optimized user interface came, I thought there was still room for improvements: a horizontal menu gave the admin area more of a "desktop application" feel, and I think it's superior to a vertical menu. So I updated the WordPress Admin Drop Down Menu.

Download

Get the plugin :

Download the plugin :
ozh-admin-drop-down-menu.zip
Extract and upload to your blog, preserving directory structure.
Note: download counter here and stats on wordpress.org may differ and reflect the number of downloads before this plugin was hosted on the plugin directory

Activate and enjoy. Another friendly install & forget piece of PHP.

Features

  • Customizable color scheme with a neat color picker
  • Normal mode for regular users, compact mode for real estate maniacs, minimal mode for those who never have enough
  • Optional cute icons from FamFamFam
  • Enhanced compatibility with handheld devices
  • Joy and happiness for every day

Javascript is involved for advanced features and to make stuff compatible with MSIE6, but on any decent browser everything works even with Javascript disabled.

Super neat color picking.

Any color you'll love.

Normal or compact display.

Browser compatibility

The plugin has been developed on Firefox 3, Chrome and MSIE7. It should do fine with MSIE6 and Safari too.

There are glitches with Firefox 2 and Camino which both use a deprecated rendering engine. There are also glitches with Opera. I won't fix these, but if anyone wants to submit a CSS patch to resolve one of these issue, you're welcome :)

Developer friendly

The plugin comes with a wickedly cool API that will allow other plugin developers to interact with it, like adding your own custom icon for your plugin. Read the API for Coders page for examples and documentation. Also, all elements the plugin produces get custom CSS classes and id's to allow easy styling or selecting.

Translations

The plugin is ready for interglobanalization and there is a .pot template file included so polyglots can even make their own translation and sent the .mo and .po files to me that I'll include in the package.

The plugin comes with the following translations, in no particular order:

And maybe more since I might totally forget to update this list :)

Older Versions

All my plugins are designed to run on the latest WordPress version available. Upgrade WordPress whenever a new version is out, or be sorry when your site gets compromised.

If for some unintelligent reason you need to get an older version of this plugin, it might be available, yet totally unsupported or recommended. Check here: Other versions.

Feedback, Bug report, Feature request

Sure. Feed me back. Like it? Blog about it. Love it? Click on the download link, see the Paypal button appear, and give it some clicks!

If you're reporting bugs, you're welcome, but please provide a screenshot and informations about your browser & your OS. I'm not supporting deprecated blogs or plugins or browsers, and I can't respond to incomplete bug reports.

If you're suggesting a feature, you're welcome too, but I won't add an admin menu on the public side of the blog, on top of pages. If you're looking after having this menu fixed on top of page, check this companion plugin that works as a plugin to this plugin: Admin Menus Fixed.

Shorter URL

Want to share or tweet this page? Please use this short URL: http://ozh.in/kl

Metastuff

This page "WordPress Plugin : Admin Drop Down Menu" was posted on 19/01/2006 at 10:28 am
Watch this discussion : Comments RSS 2.0.

1,642 Blablas

  1. jsherk says:

    With regards to my suggestion above (comment #247) and your reply (comment #248)…

    I suppose it becomes one of those things with options!! Which combination of the following do I want it to show:
    draft posts and/or
    pending posts and/or
    draft pages and/or
    pending pages.

    Since you don't have any kind of menu, it could be a variable in the php file that decides which ones to include, and then we could change it to suit our needs.
    For example, something like:
    $display_draft_posts = true;
    $display_pending_posts = true;
    $display_draft_pages = false;
    $display_pending_pages = false;

    I still think this menu is FAR superior to the default menu system on both the WP2.5 and the older versions.

    Thanks for a great plugin!!

  2. Kim says:

    Thank you so much. I think it should be mandatory to have this plugin :)

  3. Predni says:

    Very good plugin! I for a long time have put myself. I advise all to put.

    Thanks you! :-)

  4. marco says:

    Bug with cformsII and some other plugins that have adminmenu entries on the top level (same level at e.g. users):

    link within the drop down is calculated incorrect:

    /wp-admin/contactforms/cforms-options.php?page=contactforms/cforms-options.php

    instead of

    /wp-admin/admin.php?page=contactforms/cforms-options.php

  5. Stuart says:

    Man, this is EXACTLY what the default admin of 2.5 should've been. What a relief. Thank you so much.

  6. Keith says:

    Wow, I've been running the old version (pre WP2.5) for ages and loved it, but the new version is something else! Fantastic job, that's definitely a must-have.

  7. Stuart says:

    Hm, here's a small 'odd behaviour' note: When I'm on either the Write Page or Write Link page, the Manage menu does not work. It onlyl serves to take me directly to Manage Pages or Links respectively. Similarly, when I'm on Manage Pages or Manage Links, the Write menu doesn't work.

    I suspect this stems from the underlying behavior from WordPress, though it would be nice if the plugin were able to get around it somehow.

  8. coroijo says:

    Hi Andy Great Plugin!
    Is this support for 2nd level navigation?
    haven't tried yet..

  9. Ozh says:

    Stuart » It is (WP's normal behavior) and it will be (fixed in next release :)

  10. mark says:

    alright i just tried your pluginw ith the fluency plugin, but after enabling your's i'm having a problem, my statpress ain't working properly, can you help me with it.

    Not Found
    The requested URL /wp-admin/wp-statpress/statpress.php?page=wp-statpress/statpress.php was not found on this server.

    this is the error they gave me above.

  11. Ozh says:

    mark » Read comment right before yours

  12. mark says:

    Ozh >> so do you mean that it will be fixed in next release?

  13. ping says:

    I can confirm the bug that Marco reported. It's show-stopper for me, since I do have a few plugins with top-level admin entries.

  14. D.O. says:

    I agree with Marco and Ping (above)… The plugins with top-level admin menus are troublesome.

    With cformsII, for example, if I click the menu heading "cformsII" it will take me to the right place, and suddenly enable all of the other plugin sub-menus to valid URL's. However, if I simply go from the dashboard to cformsII sub-menus (say, styling), it doesn't work…

  15. ovizii says:

    found an incompatibility with this plugin, see my forum psot: http://www.afcomponents.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=12310

  16. jsherk says:

    Thanks ZeusII (Comment #249- modified plugin to keep submenus visible)

    The whole point of this plugin is to 'save clicks', and by keeping these menus visible you do save clicks within that submenu section! A combination of the two does definitely win!!!

  17. Mic says:

    This is a must have plugin that completes the 2.5 admin design. Thanks!
    Mic

  18. Ozh says:

    Incorrect link in submenus now fixed. Download! :)

  19. Baris Unver says:

    Ozh, I mailed you a suggested feature (which I already modified the plugin and attached) and another suggestions (which I could not manage to modify). Did you read it or not, you didn't mail me back?

  20. Ozh says:

    Baris Unver » I have received nothing, sorry…

  21. Fabio says:

    HI Ozh, first of all, thanks for your plugin.
    I think however that it contains an incompatibility because it brokes my upper menu in wordpress 2.5 upload system: when i try to post a new article and i want to insert an image with new upload system, if i disable the plugin, menu appear normal but if i enable your 2.0.2 Worpdress Admin Drop Down Menu, upper menu entries (Gallery, media Library and in my case NextGen gallery) aren't visible.

  22. affa says:

    admin – can you please delete the above comment. i accidentally left a website in development listed rather than changing the domain name to 'example'. please edit or delete. thank you.

  23. affa says:

    Hi Ozh…
    I'm having a strange issue with Admin Dropdown mixed with CformsII. Oliver over on the Cforms forum thought it might be on your side. The discussion is here:
    http://www.deliciousdays.com/cforms-forum/troubleshooting/problem-with-cforms-mixed-with-admin-dropdown-menu/page-1/post-3693/#p3693

    Any ideas?

  24. Ozh says:

    affa » This has been fixed a few days ago. Please update.

  25. Fabio says:

    Thanks Ozh, version 2.0.3 fixed the problem i told you above. Now upper menu in upload system is correct with all links.

  26. affa says:

    thanks Ozh, updating it did fix it. I had 2.0.1.

    Oddly, my plugin manager was not reporting that there was a new version out, so I had assumed I was up to date.

    Now all works.

  27. Stuart says:

    So this is what I'm getting on IE7 with version 2.0.3:

    http://www.hbpathways.com/ozhdropdown203.gif

    Note not only the black menu items (after being scrolled over) but also the misaligned top-level menus (also after being scrolled over).

    This is a fresh WP 2.5 install with no plugins whatsoever apart from Ozh Drop Down Admin 2.0.3.

    Meanwhile, is there anywhere I can re-download 2.0.2? I foolishly overwrote the old plugin without seeing if the new one worked first :(

  28. Doc4 says:

    You're awesome. Thank you so much for adding functionality with Fresh Post / Custom Write Panel. This plug-in is great.

    Thanks again.

  29. Ozh says:

    Stuart » Version 2.0.2
    I admit I have some difficulties feeling sorry for IE7 users. Sorry peeps, I really can't stand this browser (IMHO it's far worse than IE6) and, since I'm not running XP or Vista, I cannot install it on my computer. Just hoping someone will fix the CSS for this browser :)

  30. Stuart says:

    Oh, I agree Ozh, I myself am a diehard Firefox user. However, my clients are mostly Windows IE users, and they are the ones I have to take care of. I only wish I could ignore IE as a consideration when making a website for someone.

    Thanks for the link though, and I'll probably end up taking a look at the CSS on my own time anyways :)

  31. Stuart says:

    The bottom-align problem where [ozhmenu a] links protrude 1 pixel outside the blacnk menu bar can be fixed by adding:

    #wphead { #border-top-width: 31px; }

    right before line 380 of the plugin (the bottom of the style declarations).

    The # is a hack where only ie7 and downwards will process the extra pixel of border for wphead, eliminating the misalignment.

    I'll be loking at the black link background thing now although that looks a little more complicated for my paltry coding abilities :)

  32. Stuart says:

    The black link background after hovering on IE7 and 6 can be fixed by adding:

    ul#ozhmenu li ul li { background: transparent !important; }

    to the end of the style declarations (line 380 in the plugin).

    Apparently IE is taking the [li] element's background in preference over the [a] element's background after the hover! Which is typical IE BS… But it's fine after that line.

    If you look at the code with Firebug you'll notice there's an inline style [ background color rgb(70,70,70) ] sneaking onto the [ ul#ozhmenu li ul li ] elements somehow. That's what's causing the problem and that's why the transparent background declaration with !important tag fixes it (I have no idea why that inline style is showing up though).

    Anyway, thanks for a brilliant, essential plugin Ozh, I really don't mean to pick at it or anything, hopefully it's been a bit of help for those poor IE users :)

  33. Stuart says:

    So after noodling around a bit more I found a way to fix everything in a way that uses no hacks and validates. The following will fix all styling issues in IE that I could find (including a couple I just found just now) without hacking and without messing any other browser up:

    #ozhmenu { background: #474747; width: 100%; }
    #ozhmenu li ul li { background: transparent !important; }
    #ozhmenu li:hover a, #ozhmenu li a:hover { color: #555; }

    that should be it.

  34. Ozh says:

    Stuart » Thanks to you! I'm adding this for the next update.

  35. Chris Masse says:

    Great plugin. I appreciate that I can right-click from the drop-down menu, and open the new page in another browser tab. However, I deal with many plugins, and thus I have a long list of options in the "settings" listing. It's full and I can't see the rest of my list of options… I could provide a screen shot to you, if you wish…
    Thanks…
    Chris Masse

  36. Zack Katz says:

    Thanks for fixing the issue with WordPress 2.5 Multiple Image Uploader. I should have posted it on your site, but didn't scroll down far enough to realize that I could leave a comment!

    Your plugin rocks.

  37. Stuart says:

    You're welcome Ozh, it's a pleasure to help out a plugin which has helped me out so much already.

    In addition to those three lines in my last post you might also add:

    #media-upload-header #sidemenu { display: block; }

    As I just now realized that the image uploader menu also disappears in IE for some reason.

  38. John P. says:

    FYI, this plugin breaks the WordPress visual editor using Safari 3.1 build 4525.13. Reproducible.

    Works fine in Firefox 2.0.0.130. Intel Mac OS 10.4.11.

  39. frisco says:

    Maybe on line 346…

    background-image: url(images/comment-stalk.gif);

    change comment-stalk.gif to either comment-stalk-classic.gif or comment-stalk-fresh.gif?

    My WP 2.5 didn't come with a comment-stalk.gif

    This is a great plugin. Those clicks add up over time. Thanks.

  40. Ozh says:

    frisco » doh, you're probably right. I began coding in the early 2.5 beta days, and images were different. I'm changing this right now, thanks for the notice!

  41. frisco says:

    One other thing: unfortunately, I just had to deactivate this, so sad. I also use a plugin called Post Thumb Revisited and from the Settings menu, it normally brings up a sub-menu. With Admin Drop Down, the submenu is missing. Haven't figured out why or how to fix yet, so this is just an FYI. I'll let you know if I find out more.

  42. Ozh says:

    frisco » I see no problem with this plugin on my test blog. Submenu is here under Settings.

  43. Chris Masse says:

    Hi,
    Thanks for this great plugin. FYI, there is an incompatibility between "Similar Posts" and "Admin Drop Down Menu". The sub-menu of "Similar Posts" does not appear.
    Thanks for listening.
    Chris Masse

  44. Ozh says:

    Chris Masse » "Similar Posts" appears right into the screenshot you've sent. Please double check.

  45. frisco says:

    FYI, here's what the Post Thumb Revisited author had to say about a possible problem:

    "I’ve given a quick look at it and the reason is most probably because it overrides css and jquery routines and therefore messes up post-thumb option page."

    I rechecked it under IE and FF, and it is a problem. The only changes I made to your plugin was comments #283 & #289 and backing those out (just to be safe) had no impact. I've checked briefly for plugin conflicts, and so far found none.

    I'll also say that I went back to activating Admin Drop Down for a simple reason. I'm not reconfiguring PTR every day. For everyday use, Admin Drop Down is such a time saver that it's a better tradeoff to de-activate ADD for the rare event when I need to revise PTR options.

  46. Ozh says:

    frisco » I still don't see any problem with PRT and my plugin. Could you send me a screenshot, or more detail? I want to check if what you see could be a generic problem.

  47. Chris Masse says:

    Ozh,
    Indeed, the main "Similar Posts" menu page appears… However, "Similar Posts" has 4 other sub-pages, which don't appear when your plugin is on. That's what I meant.
    I should have sent you another sreen shot, in fact, the next one, after I have clicked on "Similar Posts" in "Settings", and you would have seen that the other sub-pages don't appear…
    thanks,
    Chris Masse

  48. frisco says:

    In my case, I can confirm it's not a plugin conflict. I deactivated all plugins, activated Admin Drop Down, then activated PTR, and no submenu.

  49. Ozh says:

    frisco & Chris » OK, gotcha.
    Contact your plugin authors and ask them *not* to use <ul id="submenu"> for their submenu. This DOM id is already used by WordPress' menu, which my plugin hides. It's all their faults :)
    In the meanwhile, edit the beginning of my plugin and set $wp_ozh_adminmenu['display_submenu'] to true

  50. […] selector changes in K2's markup.  They've done some nice things with the admin UI, and the new Admin Drop Down Menu makes it way […]

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