[wp-hackers] Splintered Menus in 2.7

[Ryan Boren]

On Thu, Oct 2, 2008 at 9:17 PM, Stephen Rider <wp-hackers at striderweb.com> wrote:
> ***
> It seems that the menus in 2.7 are becoming _extremely_ splintered.  Do we
> really need ELEVEN menus???

Recall that 2.6 has 8. It's less noticeable that there are that many
due to the visual design.   The visual design for 2.7 will make the
different sets of menus distinct, with emphasis going to the object
menus.

> By breaking things out so much, I think we're making the layout more
> "brittle" -- less open to changes or additions.  Write/Manage was a much
> stronger setup than Posts/Pages/Links/Media.  Especially as plugins add
> abilities to the system, authors are going to end up having to make more
> top-level menus because we're losing the more generalized topics such as
> "write" and "manage".  Either that or we're all going to have a thousand
> things all crammed under "tools" because that's going to be the only logical
> place left....

Write/Manage created lots of problems during user testing.  It has
long been a complaint that is now being remedied.  Jane will reply
with more details on that.

I'd rather have stuff crammed under Tools than crammed under Manage
with the stuff I actually care about.  The Manage menu was getting out
of hand even without plugins piling on.  I've seen Manage menus with a
couple dozen submenus.  You have to look at all of that clutter when
you want to edit a post.  Not good.

>        "Hmmm... I used the have the calendar page under 'Manage'.  Huh.  I
> guess.... Tools?"

Yes.  Unless it is related to one of our objects it should go into
Tools.   Why should it be located next to actual content creation and
editing?  If it really is meta related to posts, it should go within
the Posts menu where the other meta data for posts resides, for
example.  Otherwise, off to Tools it goes.

>        "Well, is the 'top of every page' notice (from plugin x) a page or
> post?  Neither, really.  It used to be under Write.  Guess I have to stick
> it under Tools...?"

Not sure what you mean.  A notice needs a menu?

> That was two good examples just off the top of my head.  We're removing much
> of the flexibility of the interface by making Top Level menus so
> specialized.

Retaining big buckets in which to dump for the convenience of plugins
is not a compelling reason to stick with the flawed Write/Manage
split.

My intent is to add new menu API for adding pages to the new object
menus.  add_posts_page(), add_pages_page(), add_links_page(), and
add_media_page().  Also, add_object_page() will allow adding a new
top-level object menu that is grouped with the other objects.  Notice
also the bump out in the Media menu (see wireframes).  That will
accommodate adding new media types such as polls, slideshows, etc.
Tools will be there for everything else, which I think is appropriate.
 If it is not content being published or metadata for that content, it
should get out of the way.

Ryan