Guest Post: How to make your Joomla! admin panel rock!
Written by Kyle Ledbetter |
April 14, 2009
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JoomlaPraise.com, started a little over a year ago by the guys at PixelPraise.com, is a relative newcomer to the Joomla! template club industry, and they've carved out a niche for themselves developing simple yet appealing templates that are not only attractive, but also what I like to call "developer friendly," meaning that they are easy to customize and easy to work with. JoomlaPraise's most recent endeavor is the release of AdminPraise 2, an updated and improved version of their first Joomla! administrator template, AdminPriase.
The original AdminPraise template really pushed the boundaries of what a Joomla! administrator template can do, and AdminPraise 2 has taken the concept even further. I have asked Kyle Ledbetter from JoomlaPraise.com to write the first ever guest post on HowToJoomla! to explain some of the top features of AdminPraise 2 and how it can benefit you in your efforts to administer your Joomla!-powered website because I believe this is a revolutionary new way to think about Joomla! administration.
If you've ever wanted more control over your Joomla! admin panel's appearance, shortcuts, menu, or acl, JoomlaPraise's AdminPraise2 is just what you need.
At first glance, AP2 is just a drastic change in the overall appearance of the admin site, but once you dig into it you'll find it's a very powerful tool.
Themes
Let's get the aesthetics out of the way, since they're just the tip of the iceberg. All the themes are inspired by popular user interfaces. The default resembles the Adobe Creative Suite and has the most color variation for each section of the site. The second is inspired by Joomla and feels much like the default Khepri theme. The third is inspired by Mac applications. The fourth takes some visual queues from the latest WordPress admin site (for all your converts). The fifth feels like the Microsoft Office 2007 suite. The sixth and final theme is inspired by Gmail and is probably my fav since I love Google's minimalist design style. You can customize background, border, font, and link colors in the template params.
Modules Positions
To allow total control, JoomlaPraise has broken all the functionality into separate modules. If you add ?tp=1 (just like the frontend) to your admin cpanel url, all the module positions will be revealed. You're free to customize which modules you use in each position. Customize the cpanel (the apcpleft and apcpright positions) and pick which shortcuts you'd like in each iteration of the AP Icons module. The apcpbottom is prepopulated with helpful links, and is an html module that you can edit. I recommend keeping the Activity Log module, as it's extremely useful in keeping track of your site's admin activity. Each tab in the sidebar is an individual module which can be moved or customized to bring your favorite links to the forefront. Publish modules in the apright1 - apright9 positions and new rows of tabs will appear (the cpanel position is last, so you can have a module published in AP2 & Khepri, more on that later). The apfooter position follows this same tab logic, but places the tabs in the footer. Rather than just unpublishing individual modules, you can totally turn off areas of your admin site from the AP2 template parameters.
One last note: There's even a module position on the right side of the admin login page (aplogin) in which you can publish a module such as an RSS feed or a custom message for admins.
Admin Menu
AP2 puts Joomla's core menu system to use for the admin site, an obvious but incredibly helpful idea. The AdminPraise Menu (as it displays in the Menus list) is prepopulated with links, and you can customize from there. Enable/disable, move, copy, create, or change the acl of each individual link. Since the choices for the different acl are part of Joomla's core, AP2 maps the frontend permissions to the backend levels: Public=Manager, Registered=Administrator, and Special=Super Administrator. The acl is most useful for controlling what Administrators see. Users need to be Administrator to access components, but that doesn't necessarily mean they need access to ALL components. With AP2 you can change the dynamic component list to only display for Super Admins, and create new links to specific components that Administrators can see.
An advanced feature in the menu is that you can enter the path for a php script, and it will execute in the menu. This is how the Menu list, Component list, and both Quicklaunches work in the menu.
Quicklaunches
Much like the application launcher in OSX, AP2 features quicklaunches for components and modules. These display a grid of icons to allow a quick visual selection. You can choose whether to display components, public modules, admin modules, or public/admin modules. Not all component logos are present, but you can create a 50px x 50px transparent png with the name of the component or module as the image name, like com_banners.png and then drop that into /administrator/templates/adminpraise2/images/logos/.
My Theme
If all your site admins don't like the same AP2 theme, they can select from the list of themes and only they will use this theme (via a cookie).
My Editor
This module is a huge time saver. Many admins have to turn off their text editor and edit code directly in articles or modules. With the default theme you have to navigate to Users, find yourself, edit your profile, select the editor, save, and navigate back where you were. This module allows you to quickly change your editor setting and it uses AJAX to submit.
History Crumbs
AP2 provides a clickable list of all the pages you've recently visited, which is extremely helpful and a time saver.
AP Icons
The AP Icons module is used all over AP2. The top toolbar links, cpanel links, and most sidebar links all come from this guy. Check out the module params and find a huge list of almost every admin action you can think of, and some shortcuts you probably didn't. Each link has acl options. Each iteration of the module also allows up to 5 custom links.
AP Dock
If you're a fan of the OSX dock, you'll enjoy the AP2 Dock, which includes helpful links. If you're not, it's a module and you can just unpublish it.
Activity Log
As I mentioned, the Activity Log keeps track of all your admins' latest activity. Helpful links are inserted on the username (or full name) and the task they they've performed. The activity from all the core components (users, content, menus, etc) is present, and more third party components are planned.
Condense Sidebars
If you're monitor is on the small side, or if you're on a page that just needs more space (such as the new article page), click the top of the sidebar and it will condense. Once condensed, each tab is stacked vertically and opens in a floating div.
More Params
You can also control if events such as the quicklaunches or condensed tabs are fired onhover or onclick, and the duration of this animation.
Hidden Features
Timeout Redirect
With Khepri, if your admin session expires you get logged out, and when you log back in you get routed to the cpanel. Joomla! admins hate this. AP2 remembers where you were trying to go and redirects you to that page. This feature was actually present in Joomla 1.0.x and AP1 as well.
NinjaXplorer Optimized
NinjaXplorer is a great tool for editing files from the Joomla! admin panel, but you only get a tiny window to edit the code. AP2 enlarges this window and makes it much more usable.
That's quite a bit of features that can change the day-to-day work flow of Joomla! admins quite drastically. What do you think? Can Joomla! vets and newbies benefit from extensions like this? Do you have any admin or AP2 tricks?
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written by Davendra Singh, May 13, 2009
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written by Cory, May 13, 2009
The core ACL in Joomla 1.6 will be much better than it is now, but that won't be out for a while. In the meantime, you need to use a third-party component.
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written by Sean Callahan, May 28, 2009
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written by Christopher Parker, May 30, 2009
- How does this template perform over dial up?, and
- What are the improvements over the Admin Praise 1?
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written by Tony Loxton, June 12, 2009
thanks for the great critique on admin praise 2.
I am hoping someone can recommend what is best to use for clients - when I implement a new joomla site for a client, they never get it easily. Often there is much training required, and this is because the interface is not easy nor intuitive. I like the look of ap2, but still think it looks confusing so a newbie.
What would you recommend as a way to make the admin of joomla easy - for dummies??
Thanks,
Tony
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