[wp-hackers] [Gsoc] AJAXy Admin proposal

[Ankit Ahuja]

I think there are several places where the Wordpress Admin can benefit from
using JavaScript and AJAX to improve the overall user experience as well as
speed up navigation and administration. This is particularly true for the
list-type views.

Here are a few places I think the WP admin can benefit from using AJAX to
avoid page refreshes:

1. Paging using AJAX (in list-type views)

Currently, going from one page of items to the next in a list type view,
such as the "Edit Posts" page (edit.php), means a page refresh. Instead,
this can be avoided and the content can be updated with the next page's
items using AJAX. This will speed up navigation across pages of items.
 2. No Page Refresh when filtering based on column value (in list-type
views)

In list-type views, Wordpress currently has ways to filter based on values
for certain columns. Example: On the "Edit Posts" page, user can filter
posts based on the month a post was published or the category to which a
post belongs. For these filters, a page refresh is required. This project
will get rid of this refresh and instead use AJAX to fetch the filtered list
of items and update the content.

3. Column based sorting (in list-type views)

For certain columns, column based sorting will be really useful. Example:

In the "Edit Posts" view, user will able to sort the list based on:
 1. Post title (character based)
2. Author (character based)
3. No. of comments
4. Date Published
And this sorting will be done using AJAX so that a page refresh is not
required.

4. AJAXy Filtering for text based search

In the list-type views, when the users enters some text and hits 'Search',
it results in a page refresh to load the filtered list of items. AJAX will
be used to avoid the refresh in this case as well.

5. Switching views (in list-type view)

Sometimes, a list-view has multiple views. For example, in the "Edit Posts"
page, user can view the list of "All", "Published" or "Draft" posts. When
switching between these views, a page refresh can be avoided by using AJAX.

6. Trashing/Restoring items

AJAX can also be used to avoid a page refresh when trashing or restoring
items in the list view.
 7. Saving Page/Post

When saving a draft or publishing or updating a post, a page refresh is very
annoying. Users like to save their work periodically and a refresh on every
save drives attention away from writing the blogpost. Using AJAX to save the
article will make the Wordpress editor more reminiscent of a desktop based
editor.

8. Updating template files

When editing a template file, updating the file requires a refresh. Using
AJAX when updating a file will make it fast to perform editing of
templates.

Thoughts? Ideas on other places where the WP Admin can benefit from using
AJAX?

Thanks!
-- Ankit Ahuja