Forum posts to 'Extending and hacking'

Re: CMS Dashboard

Andrew Short — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 09:17:21 +1200

Yeah - I guess that would be possible, but id rather not hack the core.

Posted to: CMS Dashboard

Re: CMS Dashboard

Dieter Orens — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 00:32:26 +1200

Hi, nice work.

I'm just wondering: how do I go back to the dashboard once I've clicked on another page?

Is it correct that I first need to select the root page - ('site content' the one with the globe) - and then reload the page/click on 'site content' in the main menu?

It would be nice to have it when the root page is selected (site content), where currently is nothing.

In fact - I think it would be nice if there was an easy way in general to code settings into that empty space (the 'site-content' root) - a place where we can set general sitewide-stuff.

EDIT: I think it's currently not showing when clicking the site root because LeftAndMain::getItem() returns "" - as EditForm() is false because $_REQUEST['ID'] = 0.
Doing some tricks with getItem() etc should make this possible I guess. Not sure if this would be possible without actually hacking into the leftandmain.php

Posted to: CMS Dashboard

Re: CMS Dashboard

Andrew Short — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 21:53:23 +1200

Finally, ive had enough free time to update the dashboard module. I think its getting pretty close to done, the only thing really holding me back at the moment is the old forked prototype. Hopefully 2.3 will allow me to use some newer JS techniques.

Because of this, ive left the Site Information box empty, with the aim of replacing it with contextual graphs. Also, ive disabled drag + drop.

Changes include the fact that you no longer need to edit any templates to get it working, the widget adding process has been refined, as well as the widget editing, and more general improvements.

Enjoy.

Posted to: CMS Dashboard

Re: CMS Dashboard

Andrew Short — Mon, 19 May 2008 15:36:10 +1200

Heres another update for everyone. Ive redone the JavaScript and CSS, and a little bit functionality has been added (notices + alerts up top). One problem i'm having is with the drag and drop - when i enable it and try to drag something it goes crazy - you'll notice i commented it out in my code. Could anyone who's more experienced with JavaScript have a look for me?

Thanks.

[url=http://www.grayzagdesign.com/ss/01-lg.jpg][img]http://www.grayzagdesign.com/ss/01-sml.jpg[/img][/url]
[url=http://www.grayzagdesign.com/ss/dashboard-dev-0.1.tar.gz]Tar Archive[/url]

Posted to: CMS Dashboard

Re: CMS Dashboard

Andrew Short — Wed, 14 May 2008 18:05:51 +1200

Sam:

That would be wonderful. Hopefully soon ill have it to a point where the module is ready for production use. At the moment im working on the widget adding code - it needs quite a bit of work. After that ill need to ensure cross browser compatibility - so far ive only tested in FF. I also need to tidy up the JS and make the widgets draggable.

DesignCity: Thanks very much!

Posted to: CMS Dashboard

Re: CMS Dashboard

Michael Bollig — Wed, 14 May 2008 15:51:14 +1200

Grayzag - this is really brilliant work. I would love for this functionality to be included for some of my clients. I'll keep my eye on this thread for some way that I might be able to help!

Keep up the great work :)

Posted to: CMS Dashboard

Re: CMS Dashboard

Sam Minnee — Wed, 14 May 2008 14:13:57 +1200

Hi Grayzag,

We're wanting to use this system for a project of ours. :-)
Would you be happy for us to add it to our subversion repository?

Posted to: CMS Dashboard

Re: CMS Dashboard

Andrew Short — Sun, 11 May 2008 16:47:15 +1200

Hi Everyone,

Heres a basic implementation of the widgeting system, using a Member decorator to link each member to a DashboardWidget_Area object (later to be refactored into a plain Widget Area). Thanks very much for all the help simon_w and Sam, and thanks to Sean and Will for your feedback.

Anyway, theres another [url=http://grayzagdesign.com/ss/Dashboard%20Widgets.htm]screencast[/url] (4.5MB) showing the functionality. If you want to grab the source its right [url=http://grayzagdesign.com/ss/dashboard.tar.gz]here[/url].

Thanks.

Posted to: CMS Dashboard

Re: CMS Dashboard

Sam Minnee — Thu, 08 May 2008 16:26:21 +1200

Hi Grayzag,

Another way of approaching the widgets would be to create a separate WidgetArea object for each CMS admin - the regular widget system groups Widgets into WidgetAreas.

You could add Member.DashboardWidgetsID to point to the appropriate WidgetArea. It should then be possible to leverage the current widget editor for the purposes of editing the dashboard.

This will keep separate the concerns of showing different widgets to different CMS users, and the actual rendering of those widgets.

The other thing I would suggest is that having different widgets for different CMS users is kind of a low-priority issue, simply because most sites have relatively few people who log onto the CMS. You could therefore build the system to just use a single WidgetArea, and then add member-specific WidgetAreas later without having to change the actual widget-display code too much.

Posted to: CMS Dashboard

Re: CMS Dashboard

Andrew Short — Thu, 08 May 2008 16:18:34 +1200

Hi Sam,

At the moment I’m working on the widget system, and will hopefully upload a quick demo when I get home. As for the second widget API, I’m using DashboardWidget (extending Widget) to parent all the widgets - all this does at the moment is add a has_one linking the widget to a member. I’ve made a note to myself to refactor this into a simple DataObjectDecorator, hopefully ill get around to doing this very soon so all front-end widgets will be easily pluggable in to the backend. Ticket #2376 will be useful to restrict widgets to certain areas, so frontend/backend only widgets don’t explode when added to the wrong place ;)

Another note so I don’t forget is that if the backend widgets will be used in the frontend, then ill have to ensure that you can add dashboard widgets without the has_one member requirement.

As for making other content pluggable, I’m currently thinking about adding a similar function to the addTodo method, but allowing you to specify a filter and add the item to the site information box rather than the Todo items box. Maybe also a DashboardTodo::addCustom function to add things like Top Search Terms, rather than hardcoding it in.

Just a quick note on how I’ve implemented widgets:
All Dashboard Widgets currently extend from DashboardWidget, to be later refactored into a decorator. Each dashboard widget has one member, and each member can have many widgets. At the moment, to add a widget you click the "Add a widget" button, and a form asking you to select a widget pops up using GreyBox. Once you have selected this it calls getCMSFields on that widget to get all the input needed. After you save the widget the widget area reloads its information with an Ajax-Call. Each widget also has a delete button in the top right, later to be supplemented by an edit button so you can edit the widget without deleting it. (Dropdown menu?)

Posted to: CMS Dashboard