Cog as ultimate contextual admin menu (see mockup)

Hi Zach!

We actually shamelessly stole this code from Drupal 7. It's a new module that is going to ship with core called contextual links.

Ideally, this code will be taken out of Skinr, and the module backported. I know that someone has already started backporting the module (after we started working on this), but I'm not sure what shape it's in, and it's also only on Github at this point.

I've been meaning to post about this, because it badly needs to happen, but haven't had the time, so if anyone has time to test it out and see what needs to be done to make this happen, I would be very happy:

The backported code is here:
http://github.com/swentel/contextual

fago has a utility to synchronize github with cvs at http://github.com/fago/drupal-git-sync
I've opened an issue with contextual on github for them to synch it with a drupal.org project.

We have build such a module for drupal 6:
http://drupal.org/node/795694#comment-3032046

It has a lot of different hooks so you can add more links and forms to the "contextual tip".
It also enables (saveable) drag and drop for blocks.

Maybe we can join these things together somehow?
Mail me if you are interested!

Thanks Zach!
We use it frequently on a couple of websites for our clients and they love it too.
I hope the Drupal community will think the same way...

As soon as there is a good viable solution, we will gladly implement it in Skinr using a universal contextual module. Until then, though, every module is implementing their own version, and Skinr is forced to as well.
The backport of the D7 version of contextual can't be used as long as it's not available on drupal.org; it wouldn't be accessible enough.

You can always override some of the CSS to move things around and ensure they don't overlap, as a stop-gap measure.

I want to be able to turn these links off and disable the modal dialog, this is not accessible and some of my clients, during testing, have complained that they do not like this feature (because its not accessible and therefor cannot use it in their sites because they must met strict accessibility requirements).

It would be good if we could just turn this off in the module.

You can disable the Dialog module and still use Skinr. It works just fine. As far as the contextual links are concerned, I'll re-quote moonray:

As soon as there is a good viable solution, we will gladly implement it in Skinr using a universal contextual module. Until then, though, every module is implementing their own version, and Skinr is forced to as well.

I understand the frustration here, but this is a dev version and there is ONE person who codes this module - that's it. We don't have the time or resources to make things like the Dialog fully accessible, nor to solve the contextual problems that are really contrib-wide problems.

I'll see if I can make some hooks for the new Skinr-cog-link in my administertooltip module.
In that way there is a hookable and thus extendible module for some general contextual functionality...

This is entirely dependent upon third-party modules.

- http://drupal.org/project/contextual
- http://github.com/swentel/contextual

Hey,

So I read the comments but I'm not quiet sure on what needs to be done.

Have we decided on the solution for this issue? If so what needs to be completed for this issue to be resolve?

Thanks :)

Is the http://drupal.org/project/contextual module a solid, useable dependency? That is the real question. If so, we can start implementing it in skinr, and removing any custom code we dropped in for handling contextual links.

I dunno how to determine if this is a solid usable dependency but i just messed around with it and i like it a lot.. technically you can use it already to edit skins just not using the dialog.

perhaps when the new skinr ui is ready we can submit a patch for this to add an edit skin link..?

We can implement the hook in skinr without a need to submit a patch to the module. I personally like http://github.com/swentel/contextual better because is a d7 backport. ;-)

But we can essentially provided the hooks for both of them and then a user can use what ever they like.

I prefer the D7 backport as well. Keep things standardized.

I dunno about that D7 backport.. i added on a site and it does absolutely nothing. no error messages or anything. it would be nice to use if it actually worked because it would be familiar but its not working and appears that the developer has zero interest in making it work.

@nomonstersinme - @ericdruan said he tried it with Skinr and it worked. You need to add variables to your theme to make it work, and Skinr will need to change some code to work with it too.

oh der.. would help if i actually looked at readme files... do you think this is too much for some to have to add both the skinr variable AND this cog variable or would we be able to simplify it?

Anyway, "someone" will end up back porting it. I have no question about that. It's only a matter of time. I would suggest that when we have 7.x in decent shape, if this is still not on d.o, that we just pull the code and create a project on d.o for it, but I don't think we can commit to that right now.

Do you think this is too much for some to have to add both the skinr variable AND this cog variable or would we be able to simplify it?

It will be another confusing step, but it's better than all sorts of modules and themes trying to implement these types of links and clashing all over the place. There's really nothing we can do about it. It's not perfect, but it's WAY better than the current situation.

good point. i have it working now seems nice. i guess we should postpone this for now...

Not going to happen in D6. Closing.