ExpressionEngine extension that makes a toolbar available to the front end of a website via global variables. Its purpose is to minimize the number of clicks it takes to make changes between the front-end and the back-end of an EE site. By Erik Reagan.
- Place ext.er_developer_toolbar.php in your system/extensions directory
- Place lang.er_developer_toolbar.php in your system/language/english directory
- Place the toolbar directory in your themes directory (should be themes/toolbar)
- Enable the extension in your Extensions Manager
- Place the following code in the
<head>of your site:
{if er_developer_toolbar_head}{er_developer_toolbar_head}{/if} - Place the following code in the
<body>of your site:
{if er_developer_toolbar}{er_developer_toolbar}{/if}
I put it right before my</body>tag. - Browse your site with quick details and links at your finger tips!
Important Caching Notice
If your site uses page (template) caching you will need to use embed templates that are not cached. In this case you would place the code above in individual templates (probably under their own template group) to be embedded and then use these in your <head> and <body> respectively:
{embed="er_developer_toolbar/.toolbar_head"}
{embed="er_developer_toolbar/.toolbar"}
The names of the templates and template group above are examples. If you are using an MSM setup keep in mind that you only need to do this with one site. You can embed templates across any of your MSM sites. See ExpressionEngine documentation for MSM.
Member Groups
The first and most important option with ER Developer Toolbar is which member groups can see the toolbar. Each link in the toolbar checks for permissions before being created so you can show this toolbar to other members who may not have the same access as you and they will simply not what links are not being displayed. Everyone sees the performance indicators by default (time & queries)
Toolbar Position
The toolbar can be positioned on any edge of the browser widow. When enabled it will be fixed to the top edge of the browser but you can change that under the Extension Settings.
Link Target
This toolbar is designed to minimize clicks between the front end and back end while working on the EE site. Personally I like settings the toolbar links to open in a new window so that I just make the change in the CP that I need, then close the window/tab and refresh my front end (as opposed to having to use the back button in the same window/tab). By default the toolbar will open links in the same window but you can change this to open in new windows in the settings.
LG Addon Updater
This extension can call home and check for updates if you have LG Addon Updater installed.
As a developer who works with clients all the time, I love brandable tools. There certain pieces of this toolbar that I would enable to my clients so I thought you might as well. Because of this I wanted to enable you to brand this toolbar on a per-site basis. You can preview the toolbar (in basic form) from within the extension settings so you do not have to save the settings to see how it looks. I have also included a layered Photoshop file to help you get the logos together along with the colors (resources/toolbar_brand.psd). Here’s the what and the how:
Horizontal Logo
The horizontal logo dimensions are 100×25 and you can replace it with the path to your logo here. Either use a transparent PNG or a background color the same as your toolbar background color.
Vertical Logo
The vertical logo dimensions are 25×25 and you can replace it with the path to your logo here. Either use a transparent PNG or a background color the same as your toolbar background color.
Tooltip
This is the text that appears when the cursor is over the logo
Background Color
This will be the background color of the toolbar and the multi-layer menus. When changing the background color the arrows from the popups disappear simply because they were graphics and would no long match the background color. You lose no functionality however. The color can be in any CSS-accepted format (eg: red, #f00, #ff0000, rgb(255,0,0) all produce the same color).
Border Color
This will be the border color of the toolbar, multi-layer menus, and dividers between toolbar sections. The color can be in any CSS-accepted format (eg: red, #f00, #ff0000, rgb(255,0,0) all produce the same color).
Font Color
This changes the font color of non-linked text within the toolbar. The color can be in any CSS-accepted format (eg: red, #f00, #ff0000, rgb(255,0,0) all produce the same color).
Link Color
This changes the color of links in the toolbar. The :hover state will also be this color. The color can be in any CSS-accepted format (eg: red, #f00, #ff0000, rgb(255,0,0) all produce the same color).
Special Notes
Again, branding the toolbar is per-site with MSM. When you tab out of any branding text field the toolbar will automatically display if it is not already displayed. This helps you get the toolbar looking perfect before saving the settings.
Icons
The icons used in the toolbar are from the icon set Fugue by Yusuke Kamiyamane of pinvoke.com. The icons are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license. Used with permission.
Mar 27, 2010: 1.1.2
- Fixed “Site Status” display when not running MSM (bug popped up in 1.1.0)
- Filtered CSS file of additional whitespace
- Fixed typo in one javascript line (wasn’t causing a bug, just a typo)
- Assigned license to add-on: Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported
Dec 14, 2009: 1.1.1
- Altered templates menu to only show templates from current site (only applies to MSM)
- Gave extension a higher priority setting solving some cached settings issues with other extensions
Dec 14, 2009: 1.1.0
- Added fly-out menus for template groups
- Added fly-out menus for editing templates
- Re-factored some php in preparation for migrating add-on to module/EE2.x status
- Re-factored toolbar/style.css
- Updated toolbar/sprite.png
- Updated docs link
Nov 19, 2009: 1.0.1
- Added fly-out menu for Modules for any modules with an CP backend (based on user permissions still)
Nov 11, 2009: 1.0.0
- Complete rewrite and initial release of the 1.0 version of toolbar
Oct 4, 2009: 0.5.1
- Added settings for 5 of the quick links for more fine-tuning via the CP
- Corrected a few typos in readme
- Adjusted some default CSS settings
- Added a logout link in place of member group
Oct 3, 2009: 0.5.0
- Initial Release