The dashboard/overview on ?q=admin shows only blocks of menu entries just below ?q=admin. On a default installation it shows
# Content management
# Site building
# Site configuration
# User management

But, if for any reason, you decide to move the menu item Content management to another place, then the overview at ?q=admin will no longer show that block.

I found this while developnig a new admin theme for sites that need a separate admin area: brochure sites.

Basically we have broken the ability to move (admin)menu items around, which I think was/is a critical feature.

CommentFileSizeAuthor
#1 dashoard_bug_core.png47.05 KBBèr Kessels
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Bèr Kessels’s picture

FileSize
47.05 KB

A screenshot that shows how it 'broke'.

danbh’s picture

Title: Admin overview breaks when changing menu's » Admin overview breaks(??) when changing menu's

on the cvs from a few days ago, I was unable to reproduce this from the above directions. I moved the Content Management out of the admin menu to another menu (Primary Links), and as described, it no longer shows up in the q=admin page. But, I didn't get any sort of error, and the admin page still seems to work. Also, Content Management seems to work in its new location.

danbh’s picture

Also, I wonder why you need a separate admin area. The admin menu only shows up for users with admin permissions. But, I suspect that I am misunderstanding your bug entirely.

pwolanin’s picture

Is this a bug? I just tried this too- I moved "Content" so that parent is "Navigation". It no longer appears in the /admin overview page, but the sub-items still appear in the "By module" listings. No error message appears (using Blue Marine, PHP 4.4, MySQL 4.1).

chx’s picture

Priority: Critical » Normal

Give your own permission to that new admin item and you do not need to move anything.

The loss of this ability is hardly critical -- I almost won't fixed the issue but I am stll curious what others say.

Bèr Kessels’s picture

Priority: Normal » Critical

It certainly is not a valid 'won't fix'.

Yes. Off course we can still ACCESS it. That is not the problem.
The problem is that the blocks on the admin page are coupled directly to the menu items.
Somehow the MENU_DEFAULT_LOCAL_TAB behaviour makes this all a lot more complicated then it ought to be.

However, I think a solution would be to no longer couple the rendering of 'blocks/chunks' to menus. In other words: to make sure they are printed under ?q=admin regardless of the appearance of the pages.

And yes, this /is/ critical, in such a way that a 5.0 release with this behaviour will break all updated sites where people have admin menu's in non-standard places, and frankly nearly all of them will have this, because the menu's in 4* series were different., and only a ful reset will bring them in line with the default 5 hierarchy.
So: this behaviour should, at the very minimum be documented "if you have reordered your menu's (in the past), the admin panel may not work. In order to fix this, reset all your menus.

webchick’s picture

Can we get more explicit instructions on how you got that fatal error to appear?

Morbus Iff’s picture

Per chx's request for comments: I agree that the admin dashboard should not be modifiable by moving menu items around.

chx’s picture

I say somewhere we shall call it a release. Where the powers that be draw the line is their problem. I am sure we can pull more and more issues out , deem them critical and then stall.

I am sick of this. I will begin committing my code to the 6.x branch. Out.

chx’s picture

s/committing/submitting

merlinofchaos’s picture

Status: Active » Closed (won't fix)

Ber;

The administrative menu was designed to be modifiable by the admin menu. If you move items around, then they will move on your menu system. This gives modules and designers the ability to change the administrative interface through an existing, reasonably well understood process.

It's not a bug that moving the menu out of the administer tree causes it to no longer show up on the administration page. There are other options -- if you really need it to appear elsewhere, you can duplicate the menu items (such as the 'by modules' page) you need.

This is not a bug, it simply doesn't work exactly the way you feel it should work.

merlinofchaos’s picture

Status: Closed (won't fix) » Closed (works as designed)

Switching to a more appropriate status

Bèr Kessels’s picture

Priority: Critical » Normal

Its "by design" then

Bèr Kessels’s picture

Project: Drupal core » Documentation
Version: 5.x-dev »
Component: admin.module » Admin Guide

On a sidenote; should we not document this? Or is it only me who classifies this behaviour as very weird (a bug)? If i am the only one then it probably is not worth the effort. Else I think a small page or note at http://drupal.org/handbook/modules/menu would do.

meba’s picture

I agree. But it should NEVER throw a PHP bug IMO

carlmcdade’s picture

I would not say it is a bug. But it is very unexpected behaviour which might cause a long list of bug reports later on down the line.

There was a contrib admin module that was tied into the menu system. It had the same behaviour but it was not unexpected because it was explained in the usage doc that this was the case.

So this can be a docs bug?

merlinofchaos’s picture

This could easily be a docs bug. Would anybody like to identify a good place to document this behavior?

merlinofchaos’s picture

Title: Admin overview breaks(??) when changing menu's » Admin page and Menu interaction need documenting
Category: bug » task
Status: Closed (works as designed) » Active

Changing title and issue.

dokumori’s picture

Project: Documentation » Drupal core
Version: » 7.x-dev
Component: Admin Guide » documentation

Changed the component to reflect the new component categorization. See http://drupal.org/node/301443
-dokumori

dokumori’s picture

Project: Drupal core » Documentation
Version: 7.x-dev »
Component: documentation » New documentation
add1sun’s picture

Status: Active » Closed (fixed)

Seems like an old and irrelevant issue for D6?