Joy's recent post about: The creation of a Solid Fruitwood and Hardwood Baptismal Font to accompany one of our Cast Glass Baptismal Basins.

Sometimes, surprises can be a very good thing. Many times they're not but this one is very welcome and special, indeed. Late Friday afternoon a message arrived from Donna Stevens, our good friend at the Planetary Society, informing us of their surprise.

As many of you are aware, Joy and I create the Planetary Society's Cosmos Award blown glass Saturns to be bestowed upon individuals for their outstanding public presentation of science. Each is produced in collaboration with Rick Sternbach, of Star Trek Production Design fame, who commissions us and also crafts the fine ebonized base over which our delicate glass sculptures float.

This particular one, the third in the series, was presented to Theoretical Physicist Dr. Stephen Hawking at The University of Cambridge, England. Superb, in and of itself, but wait... there's more!

Turns out that The Science Museum in London has mounted an exhibit: Stephen Hawking: A 70th Birthday Celebration.

From The Science Museum:

"The display features objects and papers primarily sourced from his own archives including handwritten notes on work with Roger Penrose, his drawing of the Hawking Radiation mechanism, the annotated script for a 1999 guest appearance on The Simpsons, and the blue suit he wore for a zero-gravity flight in 2007. The display also includes a specially recorded message and a selection of personal photographs from Hawking’s life and career that haven’t been seen before. A rarely-seen 1978 portrait by David Hockney is also featured.

This first ever display of items from the Hawking archive encourages visitors to reflect on the relationship between Hawking’s scientific achievements, particularly the work that established his reputation in the 1960s and ‘70s, and his immense success in popularizing astrophysics. Hawking and his daughter Lucy have been involved in the selection of objects for display."

Among these items significant to his life is our beautiful Saturn, floating amid the many diagrams, sketches, papers, books, photographs, models and mementos collected over the years. To say that we are honored again is an understatement. The juxtaposition of creativities, his with ours, is staggering. Never in my wildest dreams... (and I have some pretty wild dreams).

I had hoped that we would somehow come to meet one day. Dr. Hawking held the Lucasian Chair, a professorship of mathematics once held by Sir Issac Newton, Charles Babbage and P. A. M. Dirac, among only fourteen others since the chair was deeded in 1663. Meeting in person, someone in this esteemed professorship would be sobering, indeed.

Cosmology and philosophy have always been favorites of mine. Some time ago, I had a moment of clarity where many things align, fall into place and one can see farther than before. An understanding of the Universe came that was different and I knew that the only person to discuss this with was Stephen Hawking. It would surely be an interesting conversation. But how? Suddenly, I was presented with the possibility that my time had come. The stars had aligned and we were creating the Cosmos Award for him.

One cannot plan something like this. It does, however, come under the heading of: "Be careful what you wish for."

The presentation was to be in Pasadena and we would take time to drive there to attend the ceremony. Best to deliver the delicate Saturn than to needlessly risk damage during shipping, when we're not all that far away. It's been a long time between road trips, anyway, and getting out would do us good.

Alas, it was not to be. Just prior to the date, another surprise came; this one not so good. His doctors deemed travel was not advisable, so the ceremony was cancelled. The presentation would be in England instead. A Planetary Society contingent traveled there but we were not among them. We consulted on the crating specifications in which to ship the award to England, to ensure that it would not be damaged and, indeed, it did arrive safely; we just weren't accompanying it. That was the extent of our involvement in making the presentation a success and we are both very happy to have made this small contribution.

Still, it is a sobering thought to step back and realize how fortunate we are to have one of our children in his office where he can experience it each day and then to have it chosen to be in this wonderful exhibit, so that many may see it, too. The exhibit runs until April 9 if you happen to be in the area.

I wish that we could travel there to see it. A side trip to Cambridge would be in my mind constantly.

Events like these are what keeps a creator going. You work along in obscurity and then, Boom!, the light shines brightly but ever so briefly. Sobering to realize that the things we create will be here long after we are gone; cared for by people whom we will never meet. At least they will know that we were here and perhaps wonder about us, as we wonder now about them.

Mysterious, life is.

For further reading:

• Planetary Society: Charlene Anderson's Blog Post
• The Science Museum: Stephen Hawking: a 70th Birthday Celebration
• BBC News: In pictures: Science Museum's Stephen Hawking Exhibition
• MSNBC Cosmic Log: Stephen Hawking's Curios Explained
• More Brushes With Greatness: BJ's Short Bio

Joy and I both wish to convey our thanks and appreciation to the wonderful people at The Planetary Society for including us in their adventure.

Have you had a brush with greatness? Please let us know your thoughts by sharing in a comment.

WordPress 3.3 hit release just a few days ago, so I dived into the code of the new Admin system to figure out what had changed.

As with all things open source, if you have a good idea that stands the tests of use and time, eventually it will find its way into core. As a result, my code is shrinking some with each new release of WordPress. Fewer hacks are needed to whip things into shape. This is a good thing but there's still room for improvement.

The 3.3 Admin Bar is now fixed by default; eliminating one of my hacks for this version, but the devs didn't go far enough.

One of the nicest enhancements that I made back when 3.2 was released was making the new Standard Admin Menu that runs down the left of the Admin pages fixed-position in both Expanded and Collapsed modes. So, if you don't have Ozh' menu installed and activated, the Standard Admin Menu stays put when you scroll. Cool. With the new 3.3 flyout menus; even cooler. Get more work done!

A pet annoyance with 3.2 was that the Admin Bar drop-down menus triggered immediately. Not a bad thing, in and of itself when that's all there is on the screen, but if you have Ozh' Drop Down Menu installed it presents a real, recurring problem. Overshoot with your mouse and the Admin Bar drop-down immediately steps on Ozh' menu; forcing you to move off and wait or click elsewhere in the page to dismiss the menu you weren't going for.

That is now a thing of the past. JQuery HoverIntent is now employed by core on the Admin Bar but it still triggers too fast, to the point that the minimal delay is essentially unrealized by users. I've made a tweak that chills the Admin Bar drop-down's timing trigger just a bit, so you can get what you want right off.

The positioning of the upper page elements in sub-blogs on Multisite has been adjusted so as to more efficiently make use of the space available. (For some reason, the Network Admin screen works the way it should.) The Page Title Header on the left is moved up, so that it overlaps vertically the Screen Options and Help buttons on the right; instead of dropping below them; creating a big vertical empty space between them. Being on opposite sides of the screen, hey never get anywhere near each other. Why not overlap them and compress the space?

You should upgrade your WP to the current shipping version anyway, but many people wait or don't get around to it right away. While that is going on, the plugin notifies them that there is an updated version. They're covered back through 3.1

Ozh' Admin Drop Down Menu Activated
Admin Bar & Ozh' Menu • Both Fixed-Position

Ozh' Admin Drop Down Menu Deactivated or Not Installed
Admin Bar & Standard WordPress Admin Menu Expanded
  • Both Fixed-Position

Ozh' Admin Drop Down Menu Deactivated or Not Installed
Admin Bar & Standard WordPress Admin Menu Collapsed
  • Both Fixed-Position

Ozh' Admin Drop Down Menu Deactivated or Not Installed
Admin Bar & Standard WordPress Admin Menu Collapsed – Scrolled

Solved a couple of new natty problems and made it more functional. Check it out. Let me know how it works for you and if there's anything I could improve upon.

Download the latest version at The WordPress.org Plugin Directory.

I hope you enjoy it. And, as always, Thanks to Ozh for encouraging me to jump in and write this.

Like it? Found a problem? Drop a comment and let me know. Coding in the dark is no fun. Well, it is but it's more fun when there's company. And, if you'd like to help a real starving artist, please buy us some cat food for our Bengal and Maine Coon rescues. ]]> http://blog.imperialearth.com/wordpress/fixed-admin-menus-the-plugin-condensed/feed/ 0 http://blog.imperialearth.com/art/sculpture/glass/blown/blown-glass-space-collection/ http://blog.imperialearth.com/art/sculpture/glass/blown/blown-glass-space-collection/#comments Thu, 08 Dec 2011 23:53:15 +0000 BJ http://blog.imperialearth.com/?p=2471

Give Me Some Space! Many of our friends, colleagues and visitors to our blogs and websites are Space Buffs. Either they work in the space industry as scientists, astronomers, astrophysicists, teachers, space artists, or are just plain crazy about space. We are, too, and we work the space theme into a LOT of our creations. We have developed many different artworks in glass of various types

Give Me Some Space! Many of our friends, colleagues and visitors to our blogs and websites are Space Buffs. Either they work in the space industry as scientists, astronomers, astrophysicists, teachers, space artists, or are just plain crazy about space. We are, too, and we work the space theme into a LOT of our creations. We have developed many different artworks in glass of various types and, as such, they are spread all through our websites. This requires persons seeking a unique gift that is space-related to become detectives and uncover many locations; perhaps missing just the special treasure that they have been searching for.

Organization (what's that?) to the rescue!
We've gathered all of our Blown Glass Space items: Planet Ornaments, Planet Bottle & Wine Stoppers, Planet Lighting, Astronomical Jewelry, Steampunk Rockets and spacey Greeting Cards into one rich location for easy browsing and ordering; as gifts for someone you know who will really appreciate your creativity or as a gift for yourself. Why not? You've been good... haven't you?

Tell Your Friends Far and Wide:
"Give Me Some Space!" Check it out and be sure to hit the Like and Google+ buttons there to spread the word. There's also a Share button, so you can easily send a hint to friends or family who just don't know what to get for you. Share this post, too, if you can. We'll surely appreciate it.

Be sure also to hit the "Deck The Halls" menu at the top right to see all of the other holiday creations that we have available. There's everything from traditional ornaments and candle holders to greeting cards. Your support will make a real difference in our studio.

Thanks and Happy Holidays! Here's the link to The Space Collection

]]>

With the release of WordPress 3.2, it's time for a plugin update. The Admin Screen layout and menus have changed a bit, many things for the better, and Ozh updated his plugin for v3.2 compatibility. My turn. Going in, my concern was how to make these new changes and not have WordPress 3.1.x users end up with screwed up menu bars. No way to know until I dived into the code of the new Admin system to figure out what had changed.

The User Menu on the right end of the Admin Header (the Howdy menu) gave me the most trouble, due to the now collapsible Standard Admin Menu that normally occupies the left side of the screen when Ozh' Admin Drop Down Menu is not activated. When expanded, the Standard Admin Menu horizontally compresses the Admin widgets but shifts the User Menu off-screen to the right. I fought with this for quite a while; right up until I finally stepped back and re-evaluated the entire situation from a User Centered Design perspective.

User Centered Design is something quite often overlooked. And it shouldn't be. Not many designers do it. Most have no idea what it is. Yet, it is the essential component of any successful design. When I donned the User Centered Design glasses, I realized that this pesky menu is in the wrong place. Yes, there are the Screen Options and Help buttons over there but one rarely uses them. All of the rest of the menus are on the left; extending toward left center. "What's that thing doing over there?" rang in my head. Let's see what's possible. One tweak to my code and problem solved. Now, everything is in one area; making workflow even more efficient.

One of the nicest enhancements is that I made the new Standard Menu fixed-position in both expanded and collapsed modes. So, if you don't have Ozh' menu installed and activated, the Standard Admin Menu now stays put when you scroll. Cool.

While in there, I adjusted the positioning of the upper page elements, so as to more efficiently make use of the space available. The Page Title Header on the left is moved up, so that it overlaps vertically the Screen Options and Help buttons on the right; instead of dropping below them; creating a big empty space in the middle. They never get anywhere near each other. Why not compress the space?

Once I got everything set to handle all six possible combinations of what's activated and what's deactivated—what's on and what's off—what's expanded and what's collapsed and everything looked well placed, it's time to poke the compatibility dragon. Fearing the worst, that I was going to be spending at least as much time, if not more, making my plugin work on an earlier WP version, I sent the new code up to my 3.1.4 version install and reloaded the page. "What the...? The page looked fine running the new code on the 3.1 version. My initial concern was unfounded. A couple of positioning tweaks could have been made but they aren't so jarring, so as to require users to load an older version just for that. It looked great just the way it is and users running older versions get the benefit of the new positioning.

You should upgrade your WP to the current shipping version anyway, but many people wait or don't get around to it right away. While that is going on, the plugin notifies them that there is an updated version. They're covered.

Ozh' Admin Drop Down Menu Activated
Admin Bar On, Admin Header On • All Fixed-Position

Ozh' Admin Drop Down Menu Activated
Admin Bar Off, Admin Header On • All Fixed-Position

Ozh' Admin Drop Down Menu Deactivated
Admin Bar On, Admin Header On
Standard WordPress Admin Menu Expanded • All Fixed-Position

Ozh' Admin Drop Down Menu Deactivated
Admin Bar Off, Admin Header On
Standard WordPress Admin Menu Collapsed • All Fixed-Position

Solved another natty problem and made it more functional. Check it out. Let me know how it works for you and if there's anything I could improve upon.

Download the latest version at The WordPress.org Plugin Directory.

I hope you enjoy it. And, as always, Thanks to Ozh for encouraging me to jump in and write this.

If you have feedback, a support request or just wish to ask a question about this plugin, please enter a comment. And, if you'd like to help a real starving artist, please buy us some cat food for our Bengal and Maine Coon rescues.

And helped us reach our goal, then go on to surpass it by 17% before the deadline brought pledges to a close. This exhibit would not have been possible without their generous support and we can't thank them enough. Our spirits were greatly lifted as the pledges began coming in, so it wasn't only funding that was needed. As a result, our first Kickstarter Project is now in the history books, as it were, and it was a great success—thanks in no small part to our wonderful backers who made this all possible. You can read all that goes into this exhibit and the schedule that we maintain throughout the conference in the Help A Starving Artist and Help Yourself companion article.

We thought you would like to take a look at our booth and, alongside, the digital 3D design model that we created in planning our exhibit. Just a small look into the attention to detail and care that we take in everything we do. It makes all the difference—and you are worth it.

From left to right in the real booth you can see the 1/3 scale model of the Ascending Stars Lifetime Space Achievement Award Master Sculpture on a turntable atop the cabinet, our display case holding bottle stoppers, small dishes, a Red Velvet glass cupcake and atop the cabinet one of the Steampunk Rockets. On the counter next to the cabinet are some small awards, our cards and a tower to accept business cards from visitors to the booth. When they drop a card in, they receive a glass pendant necklace as a gift.

Along the back wall at left center, on its own turntable, is the Ascending Stars Lifetime Space Achievement Individual Award sculpture that was presented on Wednesday to Dr. Charles Elachi, Director of JPL, the HD monitor running our Impact Movie, a Rising Earth sculpture, a 13" Fused Glass Galaxy Platter, an 11" Fused Glass Rose Nebula Platter, a 10" Blown Glass Jupiter, the Ascending Stars Lifetime Space Achievement Individual Award prototype, our illustration portfolio book and, on its own pedestal, the Planetary Society Cosmos Award spare; its twin Blown Glass Saturn sculpture now residing in Stephen Hawking's office at Cambridge.

On the table against the right wall are what's left of 200 A New Ocean prints that I signed and gave away as our tribute to the Space Shuttle program; soon to come to a close.

Here, we wish to recognize and thank our wonderful backers who believed in us and put their money where their minds are, in order to say in a demonstrative and helpful way that they support the arts and our efforts to continue creating beautiful things. Each individual supported us with pledge amounts from $1.00 to $1,000.00!

We extendA Heartfelt Thank You to each and every one!

We are in production now, creating the Rewards for each of them; according to the pledge level that they chose. It is happy work, indeed.

Our first Kickstarter Project has just launched. What's Kickstarter? It's a new and innovative way for individuals across the globe who are interested in what an artist does, or wants to do, to fund creative projects by pledging various levels of support according to what they each can afford. Doesn't have to be a lot. Each pledge level has rewards that the project's backers will receive when the project is fully funded.

Our project is a Glass Space Art Exhibit that we want to mount at the National Space Symposium in Colorado Springs. We already have our booth space and the furniture but the expense of shipping large glass sculptures, and ourselves, is significant. Preparations for the trip consume a month preceding and, even though the conference itself lasts only four days, the trip spans more than a week—and it's a complex, work filled one. Come on along for the ride.

We arrive two days early in order to de-stack our huge 7.5' tall, 345 lb. glass sculpture, The General James E. Hill Lifetime Space Achievement Award that lives at Space Foundation Headquarters, and transport it to the Broadmoor Hotel West Lobby, where it is on display during the conference for all to see. Before transport, we etch the award recipient's name onto the tall glass plates and then place them onto our specially designed transport cart, along with the cobalt blue engine bell base, and secure it in the back of a lift gate truck. It's a big truck and doesn't ride easy, so I ride in there with him, making sure that nothing goes wrong. My being there has saved him from disaster more than once . The two blast cloud bubble assemblies, with their embedded spaceflight artifacts, ride on foam pads in the car that we rent for the transport.

Next day, we begin setting up our booth. We have no Roadies; it's just the two of us. Everything has to be ready for the first opening of the exhibit hall that night. We usually don't quite make it but are in good enough shape, so as to be presentable to attendees when they begin streaming in after the conclusion of the opening ceremonies; which I don't think we've ever been able to attend. Once that is over, we trek back to our room and fall into bed.

Education is what it's all about. Tuesday is the first full day with the exhibit hall open, and it lasts into the night. We run our booth all day, handing out small giveaways while educating visitors about art, how we produce these wonderful things and why art is essential in their lives. We have learned that most people think of art as inessential; when it really is extremely important to our well being, our imagination and inspiration. We've even had people who work at the Big Space Corporations come up and tell us that "they don't use art". Visionaries throughout history have blazed the trail for those who will come after to go and do. Circa: 1970 I coined this, because I realized just how true it really is:

That has never been truer than it is today. They don't realize that a sketch on a napkin or an engineering drawing are forms of art—as, of course, are their promotional materials.

Wednesday is a mixed bag. We arise extra early to de-stack the big sculpture and transport it into the Rocky Mountain Ballroom, where the Lifetime Achievement Award Luncheon will take place that day. The sculpture is re-stacked on a raised platform adjacent to the stage. It is a tricky operation lifting the engine bell base from the cart up onto it and then carrying the vertical plates up there and gently lowering them securely into their socket and carefully retightening the clamps. Once fully assembled, we give him a final cleaning under the bright lights and then go to the exhibit hall for a few short hours before returning to our room to dress for the luncheon.

In addition to caring for the master sculpture, we also bring an individual sculpture that is presented to the recipient for them to keep. This year's award will be presented to Dr. Charles Elachi, Director of Jet Propulsion Laboratory; a wonderful campus upon which I have enjoyed many working hours. The orb on this one is Mars, for obvious reasons. It is our honor to have made and present this award, as we have to so many great pioneers over these years. Following the luncheon and photo session, we de-stack, transport and re-stack in the lobby once more and return to our booth. Counting the first move in the morning, all told, this operation consumes about four hours.

While this is decidedly cool, and we obviously wouldn't miss it, the unfortunate thing for us is that this is the time that the student field trips come through the exhibit halls to visit selected booths on Career Day. We're never there and we know from talking with many young people who are able to slip away and come over when they see that we have returned, that we are their dead-on favorite. They're enthusiastic and wide-eyed at our presentation; asking all sorts of questions before they're busted and have to go. Wish we could spend more time with them.

Thursday is much the same as Tuesday, running the booth all day, except that the Space Technology Hall of Fame and Closing Ceremonies Dinner follows on the heels of exhibit hall closing. We rush to our room and change, attend the dinner and, when it's all over, drag ourselves back to our booth to strike it and pack it all for shipping back to the studio; usually doing this in our dress clothes. In this short period of time, the entire exhibit hall, except for our booth, has been dismantled, crated and is being loaded into trucks. Nearly nothing is left but debris. It's amazing. Took them two to three days to set it up; two hours to pack it up. Really wish we could have some help in this area, but we need a different kind of help even more.

Friday we de-stack the master sculpture, load him onto his cart and transport him back to headquarters, where he stands until next year. It is always an emotional time when we leave. It took almost a year to design and build him. He's one of our kids and we hate to say goodbye.

Here is where you can help us
  and receive some great art
    and a warm, fuzzy feeling, too!

This is important to us and important to you, on so many levels. With the banks having tanked the economy, and the incorrect perception that art is not essential to the human existence, our ability to mount these exhibits is in jeopardy, as is our studio. IF we can get to the conference and cover our hotel room, we will be able to secure some much needed commissions and keep the spirit of art alive.

If enough of you pledge small amounts, it adds up. We get funded. You get Art. The catch is, if we do not reach our Kickstarter Project goal within the allotted time, we do not get anything. It is an all-or-nothing scenario and, as of this writing, we only have 17 days left to get this wrapped up. You can check the thermometer bar in the Kickstarter widget here on this blog and on Joy's to see how we're progressing. The whole process is monitored by Kickstarter and Amazon.

This isn't just a handout! You can help yourself to some wonderful art that you can keep or give as gifts. Everybody wins. Please do take a few moments to check out the levels and rewards that we have. They're pretty cool and made especially for you. You'll help a newly starving artist to stay in the business of creating; while inspiring minds to reach for the stars.

Life would surely be barren and drab
  if we had no beautiful things.

Short time between initial plugin release and the first update but it had to be done... and quick. Downloads of the first Admin Menus Fixed version were chugging along nicely for a number of days, with no reports of bugs, etc. Then, while researching why Popular Posts was suddenly returning no results by deactivating recently updated plugins, one-by-one, to try to sort out if there were a conflict, I found one myself. Always better that way than a user in trouble.

I got down the list to Ozh' Admin Drop Down Menu and almost skipped over it, thinking that it surely wouldn't interact with Popular Posts, but decided to be thorough. Bam! As soon as his plugin deactivated it left mine running and locked me out of the Plugins page. I was testing for the existence of one of his functions in the running code and if it was not found, my plugin would not start; outputting an error message stating that Ozh's plugin had to be activated.

That works great for the activation part but the deactivation part was disastrous, well, not all that disastrous but disconcerting, nonetheless. If they are deactivated in the correct order, dependent then parent, everything goes smoothly. Reverse the order and you are met with a nice blank screen with my error message and that's it. Refreshing the page returns the same blank screen. Rats! Renamed the directory it lives in, so that WordPress would auto-deactivate because it couldn't find the plugin, and I was quickly back in business looking for ways to prevent this happening.

Started to approach the problem from a dependency angle to auto-deactivate if it doesn't find the correct environment but soon came up empty, at least as far as getting an update quickly pushed to the WordPress.org Plugin Directory. Along the way, I looked at it from a different angle, took a different approach and proved that there are silver linings and lemonade. Instead of limiting the plugin to only work within a tight set of constraints, I explored expanding its range to embrace the entire WordPress 3.1 Admin Menu structure; no matter what combinations of menus and bars a user may prefer. This then eliminated the test for an existing function to be able to start and, thus, eliminated the deactivation sequence problem altogether. It's not Rocket Surgery. Four nested IF's and I'm outtathere.

As the WordPress tagline goes: Code is Poetry and I say: Lean Code is Poetry in Motion. I believe I still hold the record at RIT for the fewest statements required to run a test problem in Fortran.

Now, the plugin does this:

Admin Bar On
Ozh' Admin Drop Down Menu On

Admin Bar Off
Ozh' Admin Drop Down Menu On

Admin Bar On
Ozh' Admin Drop Down Menu Off
Main Navigation On

Admin Bar Off
Ozh' Admin Drop Down Menu Off
Main Navigation On

I love it when a plan comes together. Solved a natty problem and made it more functional. Sequence or combination matters no longer. It's actually fun to watch it work. Well, it is for me, anyway. Check it out. Let me know how it works for you and if there's anything I could improve upon.

Download the latest version at The WordPress.org Plugin Directory.

I hope you enjoy it. And, as always, Thanks to Ozh for encouraging me to jump in and write this. I've got a lot to learn to even approach where he is in PHP but, ya gotta start somewhere. May as well be something fun (and small).

If you have feedback, a support request or just wish to ask a question about this plugin, please enter a comment. And, if you'd like to help a real starving artist, please buy us some cat food for our Bengal and Maine Coon rescues.

The Story of the Admin Menus Fixed WordPress Plugin

It all started as a hack. I use a really cool plugin authored by Ozh—his Admin Drop Down Menu. It puts a thin horizontal bar across the top of the Admin screens with drop-down menus, so you can turn off the wide column of standard menus that runs down the left side and gain some real estate. This was cool but the new menu scrolled up out of view with the page. I asked for a fix, so to speak, that would fix the menu so that it would always be available and not have to scroll up to get to it. After a while, I took a crack at fixing it myself and it worked. Yippee! Lasted quite a while and I was the only person who had it—that I know of, anyway.

Enter WordPress v3.1.

Party's over. New menus and bars that people love to hate all over the top of the screen and Ozh's menu had nowhere to go but to fit under them, making the whole thing really fat—and now two menus scrolled. Efficiency out the airlock. Trying my hack left me with a goofy split with Ozh's menu hanging in mid-air, as the Admin Menu scrolled out from behind and off the top with the page. Great.

Something had to be done. I don't give up easy. It took a lot of hacking and error, the details of which are outlined in the previous post but I win! Again! And so do you.

Distilling the hack down to the essentials to make this work, I decided to post about it, so that others may benefit. Ozh came by, saw my hack, complemented me on it and encouraged me to write a companion plugin to his that would enable this functionality. I had offered him the code to include in his plugin but his suggestion to write one spurred me on to learn something new; something I have been wanting to do for some time—write a WordPress plugin. With his blessing, I hereby present to the WordPress Community...

My first plugin for WordPress. Ta-Da!

What you need, where you need it — and when.

It consolidates Ozh's menu, the WordPress 3.1+ Admin Bar and Admin Menu and makes them all fixed position, so that you always have their availability at the top of your window. All three fit in darn near the same space as the standard 3.1 menus do alone. Back to more screen real estate and less scrolling!

Install Ozh's plugin, Network Activating in Multisite if you like, then install my companion and activate the same way. Your Admin Menus are transformed into a nice compact stack, with everything all in one place, that remains on-screen at all times, so you can get more work done in less time.

Screenshots:
Left Side
Right Side

It even follows the selection of whether you have the Admin bar displayed in the backend. Turn the Dashboard Admin Bar off in:

Your Profile > Show Admin Bar

Left Side No Admin Bar
Right Side No Admin Bar

Download the latest version from the WordPress.org Plugin Directory »

If you have feedback, a support request or just wish to ask a question about this plugin, please enter a comment. And, if you'd like to help a real starving artist, please buy us some cat food for our Bengal and Maine Coon rescues.

Admin Menus Fixed — THe HaCk

Not that they were necessarily broken... well, there is room for improvement, but I mean "fixed" in the sense of the word meaning not moving. I have long used a most excellent plugin designed to make WordPress Admin's lives easier by consolidating the backend Admin Menu that normally runs down a column on the left side of the screen into a thin bar across the top of the screen. It is authored by Ozh and can be found in the WordPress Plugin Directory. It is called the Ozh' Admin Drop Down Menu and it has saved me lots of hours and lots of clicking as I admin two Multisite installs.

The only thing that has been missing all this time is that the Drop Down menu scrolls with the page. It would make my day so much more efficient if I didn't have to keep scrolling back up in order to navigate to another section of the site or to another site in my network. I suggested this as an enhancement to the plugin many versions ago but none came along. So, being pretty good at innovative code, problem solving, having thought of writing a plugin one day myself, and knowing that one should get their first exposure to that by understanding an existing plugin, I decided to see what I could do.

Lots of trial and error finally distilled down to a remarkably simple set of edits (isn't that always the way?) to only the plugin CSS code. Didn't require working any PHP at all, although I got in there a few times looking for elusive solutions. I've had this running I think as far back as WPMu v2.7 up through v3.0.5. WP v3.1 is another story which we'll get into later on. It takes a bit of file editing but nothing scary. Remember to keep an original, just in case. You never know...

Locate the adminmenu.css.php file found in the plugin's /inc folder.

#screen-meta {
  display:none; /*hidden in case we have no JS to move it*/
}
/* Styles for our new menu */
#ozhmenu_wrap {
  z-index:43000;
  overflow:hidden;
  width:100%;
  clear:both;
}

and repalce it with this:

#screen-meta {
  margin-top:25px !important;
  display:none; /*hidden in case we have no JS to move it*/
}
/* Styles for our new menu */
#ozhmenu_wrap {
  z-index:43000;
/* overflow:hidden; */
  width:100%;
  clear:both;
  position:fixed;
}

For WordPress 3.1, it got a little trickier. Placing the above code in the new version puts Ozh's menu below the light grey Admin Menu; which is below the dark grey Admin Bar. The Admin Bar is fixed but the Admin Menu scrolls with the page, so you end up with the Bar at the top, a gap and Ozh's menu fixed in space when you scroll down. Ugly and not very user friendly. In order to deal with the new Admin Bar and Admin Menu that now Borged the entire top of the screen, tame them into something actually usable; integrating Ozh's with them, I had to go into core files and modify all sorts of stuff. Once that was done, of course I then had to spend nearly as much time checking three versions of IE to see what it was [not] doing.

Until the Drop Down Menu gets a rewrite to incorporate the functionality of the Admin Menu, it must remain active. Without it, Multisite Admins have no way of getting to the Network Admin screens. But it's bloated. So, I thinned the vertical size of the Admin Menu and condensed the contents, so that it doesn't consume so much vertical space. Now all three fit in nearly the same space as the original two.

Once I had something that operated efficiently and looked good in as little screen real estate as possible, I created an override set of CSS that goes into the plugin's file and returned the core files to their original state. This prevents losing these edits when a WP version upgrade comes down the pipe.

Using plugin version 3.4.99 that is for WordPress v3.1, add this section to adminmenu.css.php just before the line:

/* Style for Ozh's Admin Drop Down Menu */

/* WP3.1 Core CSS Overrides for Fixed Admin Menus */
/* by B.E.Johnson (spherical) | http://sphericalmagic.com/ */
#wpcontent {
  margin-top:80px ! important;
}
#user_info {
  line-height:24px ! important;
  height:24px ! important;
}
#user_info p {
  line-height:24px ! important;
}
#wphead {
  height:26px ! important;
  width:100% ! important;
  position:fixed ! important;
  top:28px ! important;
  z-index:10 ! important;
}
#header-logo {
  margin:-5px 0 -6px 15px ! important;
}
#wphead h1 {
  padding:0 8px 5px ! important;
}
#wphead h1.long-title {
  padding:2px 10px ! important;
}
#wpbody-content .metabox-holder {
  padding-top:0px ! important;
}
/* End WP3.1 Core CSS Overrides for Fixed Admin Menus */

Then a few lines farther down, find this section:

/* Styles for our new menu */
#ozhmenu_wrap {
  z-index:43000;
  overflow:hidden;
  width:100%;
  clear:both;
}

and change it to:

/* Styles for our new menu */
#ozhmenu_wrap {
  z-index:43000;
/* overflow:hidden; */
  width:100%;
  clear:both;
  position:fixed;
  top:28px;
}

Upload your edited file overwriting the original (you DID save a copy, yes?) and reload your Admin. Here's what it does:

I kept the darker grey Admin Bar. I like the My Sites menu and can't wait until that is in the Drop Down as well. The other menus in it are redundant with the plugin running; but that enhancement will have to wait for another day. If you turn it off, then this code needs another edit. In the code just above, set the #ozhmenu_wrap { top:28px; } to 0px and the Drop down will stick to the top.

There are undoubtedly other ways of doing this and this hack probably won't last very long anyway. The plugin will eventually pull all of the new menus into its hierarchy and all of this will be history; but we'll get our screens back. Ozh, if you'd like to incorporate some of these techniques, I'd be honored.

This hack, with enhanced features, has now been packaged into a companion plugin (my first), at the gracious suggestion of Ozh (see his comment, below) and is now available on the WordPress.org Plugin Directory.

If you find this code useful on your own blog or have developed a solution that you like, please let us know.