X-Dashboard

This plugin will allow you to customize your dashboard in the WordPress Blogging software. It’s simply a drop-in replacement for WP’s default dashboard. Allows you to:
- Disable selectively each component of the default dashboard
- Choose display order and location of each element
- Easily add new modules to get a customized display each time you log in.

Installing

Plugin download page: [[0]]

download the archive – x-dashboard.zip – and unpack it. Upload the full x-dashboard directory (with the x-dashboard.php file and x-dash-plugins folder within) to your plug-ins folder. After the upload is complete, go activate the plug-in in your administration area. You have now successfully installed the plug-in.

Setup

After installing the plug-in, navigate to the Dashboard » Options sub-menu in your administration area. If you don’t see the Options sub-menu in your Dashboard, try going to Options » x-Dashboard sub-menu.

In the x-Dashboard Options menu – located at either of the above mentioned areas – you will see a listing of all the installed modules with settings for each module. These settings are Enabled, Order, and Section.

Enabled Setting

This setting is simply a check box. Checking this option enables the module – displays it – and un-checking disables it – hides it.

Order Setting

The order setting sets the display priority of the module. The lower the number, the higher the priority. That is, a priority of 1 will be displayed first, and higher numbers will be displayed after such, in order of their priority.

Possible settings are 1 (first) to x – where x is an integer.

Section Setting

The section setting allows you to choose in which section to display the module. There are three main sections: ticker, main and sidebar. Read Section 4.0 Dashboard Display for more information.

Installing Dashboard Modules

To install new x-Dashboard Modules, simply upload them to the x-dash-plugins directory that you uploaded to your WordPress plugins directory, and they’re installed. As easy as drag-n-drop.

Visit the X-Dashboard Modules download page, for a listing of more Modules.

Dashboard Display

The Dashboard is seperated into 3 main sections. These sections are the top ticker area, the main area, and the sidebar area. These sections are the same as the default WordPress Dashboard.

Diagram 3.1 - Display Sections
[[1]]

Ticker Section

The ticker section is located at the top of the dashboard – highlighted in blue on diagram 3.1 – and is useful for displaying small tid bits of information, such as drafts etc.



Main Section


The main section is the main area of the dashboard – highlighted in red on diagram 3.1 – and is useful for displaying large portions of information, such as RSS feeds etc. 



The sidebar section is the the area on the right of the screen – highlighted in green on diagram 3.1 – and is useful for displaying small peice of information, such as blog stats etc.


Dev notes:


Modules are simple snippet of PHP that are inserted inside the page through /include()/. You can therefore do exactly what you would be doing anywhere else inside a template file. A good way to understand how they work is to give a look at the built-in modules.


The only (optional) difference is the use of meta-data (like WP’s own plugins) to display information about you and your module in x-Dashboard’s Option screen. All of these are optional, but we recommend you at least provide a value for x-Dash-Plugin-Name, so your module’s name appears properly in x-Dashboard.


An example of a full set of meta-data would be:




/*
x-Dash-Plugin-Name: Planet WPIRC Feed
x-Dash-Plugin-URI: http://mattread.com
x-Dash-Description: displays the feed from Planet WPIRC
x-Dash-Author: Matt Read
x-Dash-Author-URI: http://mattread.com
*/




Note: since these are not PHP commands, you need to comment them out. You can place each key:value pair anywhere inside the document.


Other than that, the rest is exactly the same as you would use inside a regular WP template. Make sure you declare any global variable (such as $wpdb) before using it.


To make things nicer, x-Dashboard also provides you with a special global variable and a function:


xdash_show_title(string) will take care of displaying your module title for you, using the adapted size and font, depending on location (whether in the sidebar, main area or ticker).


global $xdash_cur_section tells your module where it’s being displayed. The value of this variable can be either: main, sidebar or ticker. This allows you to adapt the display depending on where the user chooses to put it (e.g. you’d want the ticker display to be much more condensed than the main area display).

		
				



	

		3 Comments					»
			
 

	
    

	
		
  1. 
			
    Chris said,
    
			
    June 4, 2007 at 8:04 pm 
    
			
			
    is this ‘plugin’ supported anymore? The download is broken. :(
    
		
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  2. 
			
    Alex said,
    
			
    August 2, 2007 at 8:09 am 
    
			
			
    This sounds like a dream come true, but every reference I can find to it is broken.
    
		
    3. 

		
	
		
  3. 
			
    Misha said,
    
			
    March 15, 2008 at 1:27 am 
    
			
			
    Jim, I am just taking a look at your photos. Unbelievable how you built it up a complete beautiful racing car in your own garage. I can not imagine how many hours and knowledge you put it there. You are brilliant. Be sure I will connect to your page in the future. Good luck. Miguel
    
http://bonzen.zip.io
    
		
    4. 

		
	
	




	
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