Can we get some better rules in place for plugins.....

[michaelcropper]

Specifically, preventing them from bastardising the main WordPress Menu. Honestly, it's one of the most annoying things of WP at the moment and the usability is just awful.

i.e. Currently (and not this, going forwards.....)

• Pages
• Posts
• Plugins
• Plugin X
• Plugin X1
• Plugin X2
• Plugin X3
• Plugin Y
• Plugin Z
• etc.

Add this into some kind of sensible architecture where plugins are contextually constrained when it comes to basic navigation.

The current flexibility of the Admin Navigation is just painful to traverse when working across multiple websites, all with their quirky needs. It's mental clutter.

i.e. (Not a suggestion/proposal, but you get the idea.....)

• Pages
• Posts
• Plugins
• - Plugin X
• - Plugin X Settings
• - - Plugin Feature X1
• - - Plugin Feature X2
• - - Plugin Feature X3
• - Plugin Y
• - - Plugin Y Settings
• - Plugin Z
• - - Plugin Z Settings
• - etc.

We just need something to help add some kind of standardisation to WordPress Core, while giving the flexibility for the open source nature of things.

Interested to hear thoughts on what could be improved.....

[peterwilsoncc]

Hi @michaelcropper and welcome to trac!

As someone who has rewritten plugins due to, in my opinion, unnecessary top level menus I get it. I really do.

I've also added code to my site to deal with plugins adding admin notices or bright red notification icons; either because they're either not actually notifications or otherwise unnecessary. (Not mentioning names, but most recently for a plugin with 4+ million active installs.)

For plugins in the WordPress.org repository, there are ​detailed guidelines on what is and is not allowed.

As a core contributor, it's frustrating because people blame WordPress for the abuse of plugins. As a user it's even more frustrating dealing with this kind of crap.

Here's the but that you probably figured out is coming.

Unfortunately there isn't much Core Contributors can do in WordPress itself for a couple of reasons:

• for some plugins, users are best served by a top level menu. Using WooCommerce* as an example, WooCommerce > Orders is much better than Plugins > WooCommerce > Orders. Do they need three? Probably not, but at least one does make sense.
• an allow list would be problematic at best. If WordPress put one analytics plugin on the allow list but not another, it would open core contributors up to accusations of bias. On social media this could come with abuse towards volunteers
• mainly though, if Core stopped plugins registering sub menus, plugin developers would start using and abusing other code (such as the menu global variable). At least with the menu API there's an official way of doing things and anything outside of that isn't subject to compatibility promises.

If you find a plugin in the official WordPress.org plugin repo going against the guidelines, then the best thing to do is to email the plugins team plugins@ wordpress.org. For premium plugins, I recommend voting with your wallet if you think they're ruining the dashboard experience.

There are currently plans to redesign the WordPress dashboard, there may be some opportunity to address this issue as part of that, so I'll close this as maybe later.

Again, I understand the frustration and feel it too, which is why I wanted to give you as much background as possible -- even if it is a bit of a blog post.

\* Disclosure: I work on the team at ​10up working with WooCommerce.