The EE home screen is thankfully about to get much better with 2.0, but in the meantime, I figured the current one was ripe for some flexibility. I wanted to be able to offer some instructions and guidelines right when clients log in, so I did this up. Maybe others will find it useful?

Custom CP Home Panels is an ExpressionEngine extension that allows you to add up to two additional panels to the EE control panel home screen. These panels can contain anything you like: instructions or notes, embedded videos, a Flickr gallery of your cat, or whatever else floats your boat.

The title and content of your custom panels is controlled via the Extension Settings, and their visibility and location are configurable via the “Control Panel Homepage” link under the “My Account” tab, just like the built-in home page panels. The content of your panels is run through the XHTML formatter as well, so you don’t have to tediously craft HTML.

Custom CP Home Panels has been tested on ExpressionEngine 1.6.8.

UPDATE - version 1.1 adds MSM-compatibility and member group restrictions.

Download it from GitHub

Wow, it’s like Acessories for 1.6 Looks nice, giving this a try.

Wow, it’s like Acessories for 1.6

That was the idea, hehe.

Not sure if it’s just me or my install is mucked up or something but installed the extension and placed some text content into the panel textareas in the extension settings but then upon going back to my CP homepage I didn’t see anything different?

Could be me though?

Best wishes,

Mark

Mark - you’ll need to enable the custom panels on your My Account settings (under “Control Panel Homepage”), choosing “left” or “right” like the other home page panels.

Ah right. Sorry about that. Have it working now.

Didn’t think about that setting I just thought they were going to show up once there was content inside the extension settings. All working now though so thanks.

Another great little addition there, well done.

Best wishes,

Mark

Just pushed Custom CP Home Panels 1.1 to GitHub, which adds MSM-compatibility and member group restrictions.

Great extension Derek.

Do you have plans to extend it’s functionality by e.g. allowing EE tags or option to add more than 2 panels?

Hey Cem - I hadn’t thought of allowing EE tags.  I’d have to investigate that further.

The reason the extension is set at two panels is because the logistics involved in using the control panel homepage hooks are pretty involved, requiring changes to the database for every extra panel you want to allow. Additionally, homepage preferences apply install-wide on MSM sites, even though the panels contents are site-specific, making the prospect of dynamically adding and removing additional panels even more akin to stabbing one’s self in the eye with an icepick.

I figured that for most purposes, two is enough (as it effectively allows you to take over both sides of the home screen).  Within each panel, you can break it up as much as you like with standard HTML.

So: 1) maybe?; and 2) probably not. 

1) I sometimes add a separate weblog to create help/tutorial type sections for clients. With EE tags you could easily add them to the CP home.

2) My reasoning there was to assign different panels to various member groups, but if EE tags were allowed you wouldn’t need more than 2 panels. Instead, doing a simple member group check would be sufficient.

Anyway, what you’ve done here is excellent and it’s going to be part of my default install so, thank you.