The Perch Dashboard

When revising the interface for Perch 2 we wanted to keep things as familiar as possible. So the default view you get when logging into your site is your page listing – direct access to your site content.

However, in Perch 2 there is a new option for that first screen – the Perch Dashboard. This post is to introduce you to Dashboard, explain how to enable it, and explain our plans for this feature.

Enabling the Dashboard

To enable the Dashboard, go to Settings when logged into Perch and check the ‘Enable Dashboard’ checkbox. You can always go back to the default view again by unchecking this so there is no harm in trying it out. You will then find that when logging into Perch, or when clicking the new icon that appears top left, you get your Dashboard rather than going straight into the page listing.

If you only have Perch Content in your site and are not using any official apps then Dashboard currently will just show a Page listing, giving you access to each page. If you have some Official Apps installed however, you will get some output from these on the Dashboard. For example Blog shows you your latest posts and any Comments and their status, Events shows you your latest events, and the Twitter app the most recent feeds that have been retrieved.

If you develop your own apps then you are also able to create Dashboard Panels to assist your users.

Our plans for the Dashboard

The Dashboard display is pretty simple right now as this is a brand new feature. As we move through our scheduled Official App updates we’ll be improving the output for each app on Dashboard.

In terms of general content, one thing we have planned as a feature for Core Perch is an admin content search to help you find and edit pages in larger sites.

What would you like to see on the Dashboard?

We would be interested in knowing what you and your clients would find useful on the Dashboard. Add to the comments your ideas for Dashboard utilities for Perch Content or Official Apps as we can then consider those as we plan updates to this feature.