Discussion Forum

jono_hayward

Member

From: Melbourne, Australia

Registered: June 29, 2014

Posts: 11

Query/suggestion: module content in the front-end admin bar

I love the admin bar, certainly makes it a lot quicker and easier for users to update their content in a dead-simple environment.

But something I noticed, and was very confused by, when I first tested out the demo site (specifically the tree pages) is that it's possible to have "pages" that are actually routed pages showing module content, but when you try to edit the page using the admin bar, you only get the resources attached to that page's template - most likely just a page_header variable. When I was testing out the demo, I didn't yet understand the module system so this was utterly confusing to me, I didn't get why some pages let me edit the content from the admin bar but some didn't.

Now that I understand modules, I understand why the content for a "module page" isn't available from the admin bar. But it occurs to me that my users will still be just as confused. I'm building a site that has modules for a staff directory and a news blog. I'd very much like to be able to have the users edit the content from both of those modules from the pages to which they apply.

(I'm assuming here that there isn't already a way to do this that I've just missed )

So what I'd suggest is this (keeping in mind that I'm largely unfamiliar with the PHP behind BigTree itself): create a method in the BigTreeModule class that can be called from within a routed module template that allows you to pass the module and ID of the content you want to edit to the Admin bar, and if that is specified, the "edit content" button shows the edit form from the appropriate module instead.

As BigTree is open source I'll gladly put in the effort to put together such functionality myself, but I'm just looking for an idea from people more familiar with things as to whether it's even feasible before I do so.

So does this sound good?

timbuckingham

Administrator

From: Baltimore, MD

Registered: April 2, 2012

Posts: 974

Re: Query/suggestion: module content in the front-end admin bar

We had something similar in an older version of BigTree to a more limited degree. It created buttons to any module based on the instantiated classes (i.e. if an instance of BigTreeNews was created and it related to the news module a button for "Edit News" would show up in the bar). That approach fell apart a bit on pages that used lots of different data (like a page with callouts pulling data from 5 modules).

A manual approach for adding buttons to the front end bar is definitely possible. Perhaps something like this for ultimate flexibility:

$cms->addBarButton($title,$link);

Maybe a secondary helper for when you have a module class instance and an ID (like the details page for a news article) that could auto create the title / link:

$cms->addBarEditButton($instance,$id);

I'm definitely not opposed to adding more functionality to the front end editor bar and I'm sure the rest of the team would be behind it as well.

jono_hayward

Member

From: Melbourne, Australia

Registered: June 29, 2014

Posts: 11

Re: Query/suggestion: module content in the front-end admin bar

Awesome, I'll get to work on it