[wp-hackers] Plugin Settings Menu Location

[Austin Matzko]

On Mon, May 12, 2008 at 9:00 AM, Jennifer Hodgdon <yahgrp at poplarware.com> wrote:
> Otto wrote:
>
> > Matt disagrees with you, last I checked. Plugin settings should be
> > under plugins, as I understand it.
> >
>
>  Is that true? If so, I strongly disagree. The end user should not have to
> think "Oh, is this setting from a plugin or from the core of WordPress?" in
> order to figure out where to look for a given setting. Semantically, they
> are all settings, and they should be located in the Settings section.

That's right: this makes sense from a usability perspective. One of
WordPress's chief virtues is its extensibility, and the way that it's
extended should be transparent to the end user; in other words, they
shouldn't have to figure out which feature is from a plugin and which
is core.

Something else to consider is the weight of precedent: almost all of
the popular plugins I can think of off-hand use the Settings and
Manage sub-menus.  Akismet may be an exception, but since its
configuration page has to do with the plugin per se and not the site
at large--it's just an activation key---it makes sense for it to be
where it is.