Customizing the admin itself...

[Feznizzle]

Hi,

I'm building a zc155e and I'd like to customize the admin area.

Here are the top things I want:

1. Frequently used toolbar: This one I am *absolutely* going to do. Today. And it's simple. Basically, I just want a list of frequently used links to appear right on the index page. Primarily stuff I use over and over during development: Backup MySQL, Easy Populate 4, Dev Tool Kit, etc. I'm going to "Display:none" the 10 day "Counter History" box, then add my link box above "New Customers".
2. Reorder some of the drop down menus: This has bothered me for YEARS. Why does Template Selection get top billing? Once you've committed, you (hopefully) won't need it again for a SUPER long time. I want to bump EZ-pages and Define pages to the first two slots, etc. Same on other menus.
3. Reduce clutter, make more logical associations: To reduce drop menu clutter, I'd like to move rarely needed items to a new drop menu called "Other". By making more logical assoc, I mean, for instance, moving "Who's Online" from Tools to Reports and so on.
4. Unique favicon / page titles for admin pages: When I am developing, I frequently have a zillion tabs open. If the cart and catalog pages had dif favicons, I could find admin pages with a glance. And if I have several admin tabs open, a page title would be helpful (because it shows in my tabs).
5. My ultimate dream: Adding Tabbed Product Pro to the admin area. Man, that would be SOOOO awesome! A tab called "Store Activity" would show all the default stuff. Other tabs could be customized to show whatever you want. Really, having all those drop downs turned into preloaded content on tabs might be pretty awesome, allowing you to quickly flip around when you can't quite remember where whatever you're looking for is. It would be highly cool if the menus on tabs had their subitems preloaded as well. Like, under the "Configuration" tab, the list would appear cleanly. You could click on "Min Values" or "Max Values"---or both!---and all the subitems would flip out accordion style. That way you could quickly check what's there, without having to load a new page every time you look.

I dunno. That's a lot, I know. And I don't want to muck anything up. But I do *really* want my quick list, right there on the index.

Question: Is there an override system in place for the admin area? And if so, can you point me to a wiki or something that explains how to make template type changes to the admin section?

Btw, I LOVE what has been done to Admin in the 155 update. I had a love/hate relationship with the fact that you could click on the parent item of those drop lists and then it would load a page displaying every drop menu with their sub items. Loved it because occasionally I would use that to quickly scan for things, but hated it because I usually arrived there on accident!

[dbltoe]

You can strip out a lot on "extraneous" processes while creating a new profile that you could use on a day to day basis. When a lot needs to be done, just log in with your superuser account instead.

Admin >> Admin Access Management >> Admin Profiles. Create your needed profile and add a user for it.

Might get you close to what you're wanting without the hours of coding.

[mc12345678]

Design75 has done something like this with the product information entry section of the admin area through this add-on/thread: https://www.zen-cart.com/showthread....Support-Thread

The sorting/placement issue is relatively easy to correct through a few sql queries.

[Design75]

Using Bootstrap and a little Javascript should give you al relative easy way to achieve the desired layout.
The sorting of menu items can be done in the database. That is where the sorting is managed

[Feznizzle]

@dbltoe: Flipping brilliant! I've used zc for years and NEVER once bothered to try creating a unique profile. This doesn't satiate my quick link desire, but it's an instant fix for menu clutter!

@MC: Design75's mod is sweeeeeet! I've wanted something like that for YEARS. Even though that wasn't even on my radar today, I'm going to install it.

Regarding the sorting, wish I new how to compose queries. What I can do instead is connect to my store tables, figure out where the drop menus are getting sorted, and change 'em. Thanks for pointing me in that direction.

[Feznizzle]

I didn't see your comment, Design75, before my above responce.

But, holy cow, I love what you did to the product data collect page. Awesome sauce!

My big concern/reservation has to do with future upgrades, trying to minimize the load as we progress from zc155e-z. Is there an override system in place for admin alterations?

Guess I'll see when I try your mod. Any tips would be greatly appreciated, especially regarding things that make upgrades easier.

[Design75]

Thanks, it was a nice chanllange, and I am not fished yet ;).
There is no overwrite system in place for the current 1.5.x series. There will be atemplating system on 1.6, but that is for the long term. For now it is overwriting core files.

I didn't see your comment, Design75, before my above responce.

But, holy cow, I love what you did to the product data collect page. Awesome sauce!

My big concern/reservation has to do with future upgrades, trying to minimize the load as we progress from zc155e-z. Is there an override system in place for admin alterations?

Guess I'll see when I try your mod. Any tips would be greatly appreciated, especially regarding things that make upgrades easier.

[Feznizzle]

There is no overwrite system in place for the current 1.5.x series. There will be atemplating system on 1.6, but that is for the long term. For now it is overwriting core files.

Bummer.

I keep a list then, tracking any admin cores I overwrite.

Design, I'm super glad to hear Admin *might* get some attention on 1.6. I'm actually planning to do a bunch of stuff on my own, though it will largely be cosmetic because I don't code. Thinking of packaging it up when I finish so others can play with it, and/or maybe submit my ideas/reworks to the powers that be.

One of the things I desire most to change would be explanations given while updating admin configurations. I've been using zen for years, but every time I build a new one I turn into a complete noob. I get stumped by the most basic of basic things, have relearn where all the switches have been hidden, re-parse the cryptic instructions when I finally find the ones I want. I plan to find the language file controlling that stuff and translate it into English.

The ones that kill me most are those set-it-and-forget-it things. Here is a tiny, silly, should-be-easy thing that stumped me for hours today (https://www.zen-cart.com/showthread....w-quot-buttons). I can guarantee you that the next time I go to set up a zc, I will have forgotten how to do that and will waste an entire figuring it out again.

Anyway... would you have any interest in what I'm doing? Maybe you could keep tabs on this thread?

Also, above you mentioned somewhere, somehow, somebody(s) are atemplating admin changes for 1.6. Is that behind the curtains somewhere or is there a forum thread you could point me at?