[documentation] [Documentation task] Admin page and Menu interaction need documenting

Wed Nov 29 18:05:05 UTC 2006

Issue status update for 
http://drupal.org/node/99656
Post a follow up: 
http://drupal.org/project/comments/add/99656

 Project:      Documentation
 Version:      <none>
 Component:    Admin Guide
-Category:     bug reports
+Category:     tasks
 Priority:     normal
 Assigned to:  Anonymous
 Reported by:  Bèr Kessels
 Updated by:   merlinofchaos
-Status:       by design
+Status:       active

Changing title and issue.

merlinofchaos

Previous comments:
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Sat, 25 Nov 2006 10:03:45 +0000 : Bèr Kessels

The dashboard/overview on ?q=admin shows only blocks of menu entries
just below ?q=admin. On a default installation it shows
# Content management
# Site building
# Site configuration
# User management

But, if for any reason, you decide to move the menu item Content
management to another place, then the overview at  ?q=admin will no
longer show that block. 

I found this while developnig a new admin theme for sites that need a
separate admin area: brochure sites. 

Basically we have broken the ability to move (admin)menu items around,
which I think was/is a critical feature.

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Sat, 25 Nov 2006 10:06:26 +0000 : Bèr Kessels

Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/dashoard_bug_core.png (47.05 KB)

A screenshot that shows how it 'broke'.

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Sat, 25 Nov 2006 17:21:10 +0000 : danbh

on the cvs from a few days ago, I was unable to reproduce this from the
above directions.  I moved the Content Management out of the admin menu
to another menu (Primary Links), and as described, it no longer shows up
in the q=admin page.  But, I didn't get any sort of error, and the admin
page still seems to work.  Also, Content Management seems to work in its
new location.

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Sat, 25 Nov 2006 17:26:09 +0000 : danbh

Also, I wonder why you need a separate admin area.  The admin menu only
shows up for users with admin permissions.  But, I suspect that I am
misunderstanding your bug entirely.

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Sat, 25 Nov 2006 19:51:54 +0000 : pwolanin

Is this a bug?  I just tried this too- I moved "Content" so that parent
is "Navigation".  It no longer appears in the /admin overview page, but
the sub-items still appear in the "By module" listings.  No error
message appears (using Blue Marine, PHP 4.4, MySQL 4.1).

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Sat, 25 Nov 2006 21:03:44 +0000 : chx

Give your own permission to that new admin item and you do not need to
move anything.

The loss of this ability is hardly critical -- I almost won't fixed the
issue but I am stll curious what others say.

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Sun, 26 Nov 2006 11:45:59 +0000 : Bèr Kessels

It certainly is not a valid 'won't fix'. 

Yes. Off course we can still ACCESS it. That is not the problem.
The problem is that the blocks on the admin page are coupled directly
to the menu items.
Somehow the MENU_DEFAULT_LOCAL_TAB behaviour makes this all a lot more
complicated then it ought to be.

However, I think a solution would be to no longer couple the rendering
of 'blocks/chunks' to menus. In other words: to make sure they are
printed under ?q=admin regardless of the appearance of the pages.

And yes, this /is/ critical, in such a way that a 5.0 release with this
behaviour will break all updated sites where people have admin menu's in
non-standard places, and frankly nearly all of them will have this,
because the menu's in 4* series were different., and only a ful reset
will bring them in line with the default 5 hierarchy.
So: this behaviour should, at the very minimum be documented "if you
have reordered your menu's (in the past), the admin panel may not work.
In order to fix this, reset all your menus.

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Sun, 26 Nov 2006 15:26:35 +0000 : webchick

Can we get more explicit instructions on how you got that fatal error to
appear?

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Sun, 26 Nov 2006 15:56:23 +0000 : Morbus Iff

Per chx's request for comments: I agree that the admin dashboard should
not be modifiable by moving menu items around.

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Sun, 26 Nov 2006 16:05:52 +0000 : chx

I say somewhere we shall call it a release. Where the powers that be
draw the line is their problem. I am sure we can pull more and more
issues out , deem them critical and then stall.

I am sick of this. I will begin committing my code to the 6.x branch.
Out.

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Sun, 26 Nov 2006 16:06:50 +0000 : chx

s/committing/submitting

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Sun, 26 Nov 2006 16:11:27 +0000 : merlinofchaos

Ber;

The administrative menu was designed to be modifiable by the admin
menu. If you move items around, then they will move on your menu system.
This gives modules and designers the ability to change the
administrative interface through an existing, reasonably well understood
process.

It's not a bug that moving the menu out of the administer tree causes
it to no longer show up on the administration page. There are other
options -- if you really need it to appear elsewhere, you can duplicate
the menu items (such as the 'by modules' page) you need.

This is not a bug, it simply doesn't work exactly the way you feel it
should work.

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Sun, 26 Nov 2006 16:13:18 +0000 : merlinofchaos

Switching to a more appropriate status

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Sun, 26 Nov 2006 16:13:52 +0000 : Bèr Kessels

Its "by design" then

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Sun, 26 Nov 2006 16:41:37 +0000 : Bèr Kessels

On a sidenote; should we not document this? Or is it only me who
classifies this behaviour as very weird (a bug)? If i am the only one
then it probably is not worth the effort. Else I think a small page or
note at http://drupal.org/handbook/modules/menu would do.

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Mon, 27 Nov 2006 07:21:06 +0000 : meba

I agree. But it should NEVER throw a PHP bug IMO

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Wed, 29 Nov 2006 10:49:03 +0000 : Hiveminds

I would not say it is a bug. But it is very unexpected behaviour which
might cause a long list of bug reports later on down the line. 

There was a contrib admin module that was tied into the menu system. It
had the same behaviour but it was not unexpected because it was
explained in the usage doc that this was the case.

So this can be a docs bug?

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Wed, 29 Nov 2006 18:04:07 +0000 : merlinofchaos

This could easily be a docs bug. Would anybody like to identify a good
place to document this behavior?