Tweaking the backend navigation

Sometimes a website grows and the backend navigation looks utterly confusing. Lets say, you have a yoga studio.

• Yoga Institute
• About us
• Teacher
• Rental
• Services
• Program
• Courses
• Workshops and Seminars
• Education
• Massages
• Personal yoga
• Business yoga
• Prices
• Booking
• Contact
• Registration
• Directions
• Imprint
• Data protection

The flat structure is no good readable in the backend. It would be nice to nest the navigation items like this:

• Yoga Institute
  • About us
  • Teacher
  • Rental
• Services
  • Program
  • Courses
  • Workshops and Seminars
  • Education
  • Massages
  • Personal yoga
  • Business yoga
  • Prices
  • Booking
• Contact
  • Registration
  • Directions
  • Imprint
  • Data protection

Fortunately, with just a few lines of code, you can create this order in CouchCMS. You have to edit the couch/addons/kfunctions.php:

if( defined('K_ADMIN') ){
    $FUNCS->add_event_listener( 'register_admin_menuitems', 'my_register_admin_menuitems' );

    function my_register_admin_menuitems(){
        global $FUNCS;

        $FUNCS->register_admin_menuitem( array('name'=>'yoga-institute', 'title'=>'Yoga Institute', 'is_header'=>'1', 'weight'=>'0')  );
        $FUNCS->register_admin_menuitem( array('name'=>'services', 'title'=>'Services', 'is_header'=>'1', 'weight'=>'0')  );
        $FUNCS->register_admin_menuitem( array('name'=>'contact', 'title'=>'Contact', 'is_header'=>'1', 'weight'=>'0')  );

    }
}

Then you have to edit your template like this:

<cms:template title='About us' parent='yoga-institute' icon='people' />

or

<cms:template title='Directions' parent='contact' icon='location' />

If you edit all templates this way, you got a well-structured, collapsable backend navigation. Don’t forget to use some memorable icons, you find an overview on Open Iconic.