EE: Low CP extension
There are some minor nuisances in the ExpressionEngine Control Panel that started to bug me and — more importantly — some of my clients. To get rid of them, I’ve created an extension: Low CP, Control Panel according to Low.
→ Download the Low CP extension, version 1.0
What does it do?
This extension doesn’t have any settings, so as soon as you enable it, you’ll notice the following effects:
No title attribute for links
You know how you get three JavaScript prompts each time you click the “Link” button in the entry form? The third one will add a title attribute to the link you’re creating, which is not necessary most of the time. Low CP gets rid of the third prompt, omitting the attribute.
No Check Spelling, Glossary or Smileys
I’ve never really used the three “textarea helper” links. Some browsers, like Firefox and Safari, even have built in spelling checkers. The glossary is only useful if you add your own items in there. Don’t even get me started on smileys. Low CP hides these three links.
No localization for custom date fields
Each time I used a custom date field for a client, that client asked me what “fixed” or “Localized” meant. Each of those times it wasn’t really important, but “fixed” would be my preferred choice. In the end — also due to a clumsy translation mistake — it caused more confusion than it should. Low CP gets rid of the drop down select box and replaces it with a hidden form field which sets the localization to fixed by default.
No Trackbacks column
Seriously, who uses trackbacks anymore? I’ve never used them and found that — in the edit entries table — it causes confusion with clients. Of course we can’t have any of that, that’s why Low CP removes that column from the edit entries table.
Infinite URL title duplicates
Not very common, but harmless to add anyway. There’s a maximum to the number that’s appended to the URL title if it already exists. Say, for example, that you add an entry called “News” every week. The first time, the URL title becomes news. The second time, it’ll be news1. Then news2, and so on, until you reach news50. After that, you’ll get an error message saying the URL title already exists. Low CP removes this limit.
Comments
It’s a great “simplify” extension. Thanks!
Hmm, the removing Trackbacks column on the edit page doesn’t wok correct with non-english localization.
You are using word “trackbacks” for replace function.
return preg_replace(’/(.*)<td.*trackbacks.*?<\/td>/is’,'$1′,$thead);
If anybody have set different language with translation of the word “trackbacks” header of the edit table not change. In my case is it word “Trackbacky”.
So I’ve changed line 121
return preg_replace(’/(.*)<td.*trackback.*?<\/td>/is’,'$1′,$thead);
Now It’s working fine for me.
Hi Gabriel. Thanks for pointing that out. I’ll try to update it to use the translation instead of the hardcoded ‘trackbacks’ way.
Or better solution:
replace:
return preg_replace(’/(.*)<td.*trackbacks.*?<\/td>/is’,’$1′,$thead);
with:
global $LANG;
return preg_replace(’/(.*)<td.*’.$LANG->line(’trackbacks’).’.*?<\/td>/is’,'$1′,$thead);
Low: Great!
Useful extension. Thanks again.
Ha! That’s exactly what I was doing! Updated.
Thanks.
And what’s about removing “DST Active on Date of Entry” checkbox on Option tab?
You can turn that off by setting the “Honor the Daylight Saving Time setting associated with each weblog entry” preference to “No” (Admin › System Preferences › Localization Settings).
Ooooh. I’m stupid :D
I have a distinct sensation of ME. WANT.
Although “Control Panel according to Low” scares me a little, it sounds like a great extension!
Thanks for putting this together.
I’m haveing some issues with the Infinite URL title duplicates part of the extension. It seems to work fine when I’m adding entries via the control page but if I add entries via a SAEF then I get the error message saying the URL title already exists.
Do you have any suggestions on how I can fix this?
Francis, I’m afraid this will only work when adding entries via the control panel. I will take your suggestion into account for a next version.