Roadmap: redesign of admin panel

[rw]

Just took a look on the Roadmap of CMSMS and was wondering if something was available of a redesign of the admin panel.

I was searching for this, because I saw that the new wordpress 2.7. version has a complete redesign of the admin panel and this is very usefull. In other words, users helped designing the admin panel and if supplies you a dashboard with all information in an overview. For WordPress it is even possible to design plugins specially for the admin panel (like stats plugins).

As other CMS system like Joomla also have a dashboard with all kind of information. Would't it be something for CMSMS to also take a look at this?

[Duketown]

rw,

It is not clear to me what you mean with redesign and in the next line mentioning of the dashboard. In version 1.5 an onwards there is also a dashboard that can be used by developers to notify the administrator. Isn't that what you mean?
Please remember that the target user group of WorldPress might (is?) very different then the persons CMSMS is targeting for.

Duketown

[rw]

What I ment to say is that it can be a good idea to look into the WordPress post as they also did some usability testing and that information can be used for other blog/cms systems. I found it good that this information is available for the community.

The target group of CMSMS does not diver that much from WordPress, as on both systems you have authors, administrators, template designers, etc. (blogpost = newsmessage, static pages are the some on both systems, template can designed on both systems and both systems have plugins.

In my humble opinion the dashboard should show several information at a glance for the different groups. E.g. when a administrator logs in, he should be able to show information boxes, with logs, statisics, etc. An author can be interested in newsitems and reactions and also in the statistics information box. And maybe even a quick news item box (as WordPress has).

This way the CMSMS system offers several options in an overview directly after logging in to the admin console and the system will be very usable.

[Frankie]

rw, i completely agree. giving some life to the dashboard would be in CMSMS best interest, but it will take some time to make sure the additions made will have clear purpose and line up with the core team's vision for this project. adding a bunch of features could just create clutter if it's not thought out properly.

I would love to see:

- A Modular Widget-Style Dashboard that is Customizable
- Integration of Analytics (Google and/or Woopra)
- Quick add for News Articles
- Modules with Updates Available
- Recent News Comments
- File Manager Overview


has anyone started a thread on dashboard feature requests?

[Ceezey77]

Bumping this topic.

I'm using CMS Made Simple 1.5.4 "Carolina" - as I understand it the dashboard 'feature' disappeared from 1.6x

I've often wondered what the dashboard would have been used for and the suggestions Franklin raised were spot on.

A dashboard with modules / widgets (whatever you want to call it) which could be customisable depending on which user group a logged in user belonged to would be excellent.  While the current method of stripping options from the admin panel if a non-admin has logged into the backend is good, this imo not as useful as having a page with the users links and options laid out in a nice simple interface.

That way the site admin could create multiple dashboards which could be as cluttered / uncluttered as they would like.

Thoughts?

[10010110]

I had a similar thought although probably not as advanced as the former request (but what do I know). I’d love to have the possibility to change the way the CMS admin start page looks/works. I. e. currently we basically have the main menu structured in sections (boxes) with the sub links (which are basically the options that also appear in the dropdown menu) inside these on the default administration start page. What I would love is if I could place some “quick access” links/boxes directly on this page, for example a big icon with a link to post a new news item, another link/icon to edit a certain page, or to write a newsletter. I hope you get what I mean?

So basically I would love to see the option to place whatever shortcut directly on the admin index page (not just as unobtrusive flyout link as it is currently, since this doesn’t bring any advantage over the default access via menu or the current boxes).

[jmcgin51]

I know this is not what you're looking for, but you do know that each admin user can specify which admin page they want to see upon login, right?

[Deak]

A fully-widgetized dashboard is fluff. There are far more important things.

[Foaly*]

- Integration of Analytics (Google and/or Woopra)

I hope CMSms core will never be linked with services like Google Analytics or Woopra. Espacially Google doesn't need more information and force.
There is a good statistics module and everyone is free to write another one.. I myself would love to see an integration (perhaps in terms of a module) of an open source analytics tool like piwik, that runs on my own server.