News sidebar for the admin console?

[drew]

Hi folks,

I'm trying to gathering useful links and tips for CMSMS admins and was wondering if there is a module or method that will provide a News sidebar in the admin page.

I was thinking of extending the existing Shortcut sidebar for this purpose but would prefer News module style functionality. Could I simply modify the admin template and insert the News tag, and display just specific category of news?

Just wondering if anyone had done this already. A forum search was unsuccessful.

Thank you in advance.

[Duketown]

drew,

Just curious: what is the benefit of such a news sidebar?

Duketown

[drew]

what is the benefit of such a news sidebar?

Its more of a "what's new " and "help" sidebar where site-specific practices, help and contacts might be listed. I just though that a news-style sidebar at the admin page would be one way of posting this information to admins/editors/contributors.

Thanks for asking.

[JeremyBASS]

In testing I have found that a module can have the frontend templates render in the admin area.... I'd think that the trick is getting the right call to put in the Theme.php... me bet is (working in NCleanGreyTheme.php) adding to  function ShowShortcuts(){}  .  You will need to add a call for something much like


@ line ~220 below global $gCms;

Code: Select all

$params['foo']='bar';  <<<add as needed don't just wipe out
$nObj =& $gCms->GetModuleInstance('News');
$nObj->functionDisplay($params);  <<<you'll need to look up what "functionDisplay" is...

This could work... but I have not tested this at all... just shooting of the hip here... Hope it helps...

Cheers
Jeremy

[Dr.CSS]

Someone is trying to revive the Dashboard module which sounds like just what your looking for, it has the ability to leave notes etc. to be shared between admins...