Easy access to website is always important, but doubly so when you are encouraging members to join and contribute comments and forum posts.

You may see changes to the navigation bar at the top of the page during this week. I’m building and testing new ideas, and I would also like your input.

Purpose of the WordPress plugin

I was inspired by the userbar that is part of this Splix theme. It adds great access and information features to the bar at the top of the page. It does not include all the functionality I need – especially as it has no functions to ease access to the forum. In fact, I was surprised to see functionality like this added to a theme, so I looked at WordPress plugins to see if they offered better solutions.

The one that best suits what I need is DashBar, but it also lacks the forum functions that I need. One advantage is that it is very well written, and can be extended to include other links. However, I wanted to add other features from the Splix userbar, so I decided to build a new plugin to create a functional, attractive access bar.

The purpose of the new plugin is to provide all website contributors, including administrators and casual visitors, with a quick way to see new information that is relevant to them, and a quick way to access that information for viewing or editing.

During this week, you may see two, or possibly three different toolbars as I pool the best ideas from the DashBar and the Splix userbar. I’ll let you know when my WordPress plugin is finished, but there are a couple of issues you can help with…

Help Form This WordPress Plugin

The first issue is a name for the toolbar / userbar / admin bar.

The second issue is that I would really love to hear your opinions on the features that are important to you in a WordPress plugin like this.

Please add your comments below, or discuss this in the WordPress functionality forum.