[wp-hackers] Menus and Labels and Plugins, oh my!

[Stephen Rider]

On Oct 3, 2008, at 12:13 PM, Stephen Rider wrote:

> On Oct 3, 2008, at 10:13 AM, Jane Wells wrote:

>> We talked about having a Plugin Settings under the Plugins menu,  
>> but there was some question as to whether people would want to put  
>> them there. I think it would be an ideal location, so if people are  
>> into that suggestion by Alex, let us know.
>
> I'm against this in the ***strongest possible terms***.
>
> My take on this is quite simple: From the user perspective, plugins  
> should be invisible. That is, the fact that such-and-such part of  
> the interface was made by a plugin should be invisible. The best  
> design for a plugin is to seamlessly blend into the existing  
> interface so that someone who didn't already know would not realize  
> that that thing there is not part of the basic system.

I think I slightly misunderstood what you were saying.  Either way, a  
clarification:

There are a lot of plugins that have very minor settings, or  
(especially) are set-and-forget, such as Akismet.  for these, a  
"consolidated" page with settings for multiple plugins would actually  
be a pretty cool idea.  This would drastically reduce the clutter  
caused by plugins.

However, I have what I think is an even better idea:

It would be _great_ to give plugin authors a way of adding a settings  
screen that does _not_ show up in the menus at all.  I'm sure a whole  
bunch of people just said, "If it's not in the menus, how are people  
supposed to find it?"

Answer:  Give that plugin a "Configure" link in the Actions column of  
the Manage Plugins screen.  Again, this would be GREAT for plugins  
that you set once and then never look at again.  There's no reason for  
Akismet to permanently eat up menu real estate.

Here's an example of what I'm talking about (scroll down a bit for an  
image):

http://striderweb.com/nerdaphernalia/2008/06/wp-use-action-links/

Regards,
Stephen