I'm a big fan of the private message module....but its got a usability problem that really makes it problematic.

So the module creates an "Inbox" menu item that indicates how many new messages you have. Great. But it "hides" that menu item inside another menu item...that does NOT indicate how many messages you've received.

How do I get it out of there and make the child menu item (the useful one) a root menu item instead of having it tucked away where my users have to click to see it?

Comments

litwol’s picture

litwol commented

have you tried re-arranging the menu items in admin/build/menu?

bflora’s picture

bflora commented

Certainly. And that's the weird part. The useful menu link that shows how many messages you've received, doesn't show up in the menu admin. All I see is the parent item. If I could see the child item, and it if was unlocked, that'd be the ideal setup. I'd just move it to the root of the menu.

Steel Rat’s picture

Steel Rat commented

I had a similar issue with the Inbox, so I created a contextual block that will only appear if the user has new messages.

The block is a PHP input format with the following code:

<?php
  global $user;
  if ($user->uid) {
    $numnew = _privatemsg_get_new_messages($user->uid);
    if ($numnew > 0) {
      print ' <a href="/privatemsg"><font color=red>' . $numnew . ' new message(s)
      </font></a>';
    }
  }
?>

And the visibility settings are using the PHP Return True option with the following code:

$numnew = _privatemsg_get_new_messages($user->uid);

I've been running this on a couple different Drupal sites for a couple years, and it works great. I just set the block weight to -10 or whatever so it shows up prominently when it's active.

frankcarey’s picture

frankcarey commented

this is probably because it is a tab, and tabs are not configurable in admin/build/menu.

xqbzzr’s picture

xqbzzr commented
berdir’s picture

berdir
Primary language German
Location Switzerland
commented
Status: Active » Closed (won't fix)

I'm closing old issues since Privatemsg for Drupal 5 is not maintained anymore. I suggest you switch to Drupal 6 if possible, many of the reported issues are probably already resolved there and if not, you're welcome to open a new issue.