[wp-testers] Page Ordering

[Stephen Rider]

On Apr 30, 2008, at 10:16 AM, Jennifer Hodgdon wrote:

> Here's a thought. Without implementing complex drag-and-drop,  
> another easy way to change the page ordering in the admin back end  
> would be to display an editable column of the existing page order  
> numbers on the Manage Pages screen. You could update numbers for a  
> few pages at a go, click "Submit", and voila.
>
> Of course, this Manage Pages screen was already deemed to be too  
> cluttered to have room for the crucial ID field, so probably the  
> Powers that Be would be opposed to adding this column too... but it  
> would be useful.

As much as Matt abhors additional Options, it's things such as this  
(and the IDs), that make me think that the Users preferences should  
have an "Advanced Admin" checkbox.  If turned on, lots of extra data/ 
clutter can be displayed that is, admittedly, not needed by the  
average Joe User.

Jennifer has just given two very good examples:  a Page Order column  
and a Page ID column in the Manage Pages screen.  Leave the "Advanced"  
setting off by default, but allow users to turn it on to see this  
extra info.  Such a simple thing could have big implications for the  
eternal struggle between simplicity and advanced functionality.

The WP lists spend so much time quibbling over putting in or removing  
important information -- and the argument for removing it always comes  
down to "most people don't need that, keep it simple".  This way we  
could have the best of both worlds.

Stephen

-- 
Stephen Rider
<http://striderweb.com/>