Display tools in a box on the dashboard?

Hello

I was wondering if there was any way to display the items in the tools menu in a box on the dashboard, e.g. under the "New Wire Post" box when using the river dashboard?

The reason I ask is I think this would be more intuitive for users instead of having to go to the "Tools" menu every time they wanted to do something.

Is this possible?

Cheers

  • @mick: I think you are making the mistake a lot of technical people make - what you think is a minor irritation is actually a big deal for non-techies.

    For example, I have had a number of people log in to my Elgg install and play around. These were non-technical people who are used to using simple websites like Google and Facebook.

    Guess what? None of them thought of using the "Tools" menu. They all came back saying there isn't much to do on the site.

    As a webmaster, this is a worry for me. I don't want people unfamiliar with Elgg joining my site and then leaving because -

    a) they don't think of using the tools menu

    b) they find the site hard to use

    I think websites should be made 100% non-irritating, and should be simple to navigate.

  • I sort of agree, but Facebook has got to be the most complicated of all sites to navigate.

    Personally I think it's the individual's interest levels in the content of the site. I believe that people will generally stick with it and 'find a way' if there's something 'in it for me!'

    This is the age of the computer user and most understand that you can't just 'Do it'.......

    Maybe renaming the 'Tools' menu is the easiest and quickest solution????

     

  • acmes. I do agree with you. But, Lets not forget Elgg is a framework. We have to make it into what we want.

  • Yep, I'm learning the framework and plan on doing a lot of customisation.

    I think Elgg is great btw, I don't mean to sound negative. :)

    Thanks for the interesting replies everyone.

  • did you try Dhrups hack? it's effectively simple.

  • @skotmiller: I have looked at it, but I don't think he has posted any code yet so I haven't tried implementing it myself.

  • @Skot

    sometimes it takes loads of research to come up with the simple solutions ;-O)

  • @Dhrup: I agree. :) If I could just bypass the framework and write a bit of PHP this would be easy to do, but when you don't know the framework it's not so simple...

    My own personal example of this is my masters thesis I wrote on elliptic curve cryptography. I'm now an "expert" on the subject and think it is straightforward, but I remember when I started learning it I had a sore head for many months. :) 

  • I agree, you gotta think about everything. menu sounds easy. security, access, permissions, etc....  Not so easy.

  • the catch with Elgg is that is built as a "tool" to be "extended" -- one needs to understand the design and engineering behind Elgg - once one knows that angle - you'll appreciate it's real power - esp when you upgrage vers and plugins are well-behaved and still work ok. reminds me of "you can bend elgg, shape elgg, anyway you want to..."