[wp-hackers] Option Pages

[John Blackbourn]

How often are you expecting your users to change the settings? Most
settings are changed once or twice and rarely looked at again. I think
the drag, collapse and hide functionality of meta boxes is completely
unnecessary for a settings page that will be accessed this rarely.

If, however, the settings page acts as some kind of control panel more
like the WordPress dashboard (eg. it provides information in addition
to settings) then meta boxes would be ok, I suppose, but you're
probably still overestimating the likelihood that your users are going
to want to customise the display of the screen.

Personally, if you've already written the settings screen with meta
boxes, then I wouldn't bother wasting too much time rewriting it to
remove them, but personally, I build all my settings screens to look
and act just like native WordPress settings screens for consistency.

John

On Sat, Jun 5, 2010 at 6:47 PM, Spencer <spencer.gurnk at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hey everyone,
>
> I've created a reusable options page that I can use for multiple
> WordPress themes. It uses add_meta_box and all the options are loaded
> into meta boxes, so they can be collapsed, rearranged, hidden (via
> Screen Options), just like normal elements on the Post page for
> example. However, I'm starting to wonder if this is the best way to do
> it. I like how they can be customized, but after reading about
> register_setting, I'm thinking that might be the way to go. Would I be
> correct in assuming this? Frankly I think the meta boxes look much
> better, and add more functionality, but it requires a lot of extra
> (bulky) code to setup. I'd normally be all for keeping inline with the
> WordPress standards and making the option pages just like how they are
> throughout the admin side, but right now I'm not completely convinced
> a standard options page (via register_setting) provides enough
> customization (that is found in most other pages.)
>
> Which direction is best?
>
> Thanks,
> Spencer
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