Discussion on the future of Administration menu in D8 [#2579469]

Discussion has arisen that we may want to consider deprecating Administration Menu (admin_menu) in favor of Admin Toolbar (admin_toolbar) for Drupal 8. Here are some of the pros and cons that have been brought up so far:

Pros

Admin Toolbar is already fully functional in D8.
We wouldn't duplicate work already done in Admin Toolbar and have two projects that serve the same purpose.
Admin Toolbar is already Responsive.
Admin Toolbar use D8 toolbar api to generate the admin_toolbar, meaning that it does not replace the core toolbar is just an extension.
Focusing all efforts on one module will help more good things to happen rather that splitting efforts and time.
Keep the look and feel we've come to know and love with admin_menu

Cons

It might be more logical to keep using the same project that everyone already uses in D6+7.
Some people might get confused when trying to find the old Admin Menu that they love.
For any D8 migrations you will be forced to disable and uninstall Admin Menu on the D7 install and then enable Admin Toolbar on the D8 install.
admin_toolbar is limited to five levels of menu hierarchy right now.

Please update and weigh in as we decide how to proceed.

Comments

Comment #1

3 October 2015 at 02:32

deggertsen created an issue. See original summary.

Comment #2

Dave Reid

he/him

English

Nebraska USA

CreditAttribution: Dave Reid commented 3 October 2015 at 04:36

Current maintainer here (since sun has been AWOL). I would be 100% behind moving everyone to Admin Toolbar. I've been active in helping fix patches there, and we gain a lot by not having to invent and maintain entirely separate toolbar code. I don't think this module is sustainable in it's current state.

Comment #3

HongPong CreditAttribution: HongPong at kor group commented 5 October 2015 at 19:52

I think it would be better to refresh admin_menu for D8 since it's currently on at least 245,081 sites and it is more logical to keep using the same module name. For both DX reasons and mid level site builders who are familiar with this tool, it will help in transition to D8. Having spent some recent months in wordpress with its horrible plugin fragmentation problems, I think that Drupal's more durable community managed module structure improves continuity and cognitive load by keeping long-popular modules in working order - contrasted with Wordpress struggles, forking constantly combined with poor maintenance.

I would suggest that admin_toolbar keep doing what it's doing, whereas admin_menu can work and look as closely as possible to the D6 and D7 versions. It can be much lighter now because of the Toolbar API but I think its worth having one that looks the same as it ever was. (subjectively speaking I don't like the admin_toolbar styling and prefer the traditional admin_menu look, as a creature of habit, but I think they should feel free to keep on with their current style).

admin_toolbar is not a massive codebase because the Toolbar API now does so much heavy lifting. admin_menu can be lighter than before to reduce maintenance.

Please note there are 2 additional D8 toolbar modules already posted: https://www.drupal.org/project/commandbar and https://www.drupal.org/project/admin_menu_navbar as noted here : #2398395: [meta] Port Admin Menu to Drupal 8 .

Over the next month or so I am going to apply the RTBC patches already on the queue here and try to gin up a working one with the same look and feel as D7 at http://github.com/hongpong/admin_menu . I already merged #2393983: Replace deprecated functions & system variables .

Comment #4

deggertsen CreditAttribution: deggertsen as a volunteer commented 6 October 2015 at 22:01

Issue summary:

View changes

I say we see what HongPong does with what he's working on. If it's good stuff perhaps he can be made a maintainer of the project. That would free @Dave Reid to shift his focus elsewhere away from this module.

That way those who like admin_toolbar can go to that and those who like the old style admin_menu can stay with it.

Comment #5

darol100 CreditAttribution: darol100 as a volunteer and commented 17 October 2015 at 20:47

Here is my input...

I was the one that started the conversation on deprecating this project on other issues (#2578551: Apply to co-maintain D8 admin_menu to help get to alpha and #2259267: Admin Menu for D8 is Broken & Can't Be Removed , and there reason have been mention already in the post. The main reason why I started this conversation is to concentrating on other projects and not building the same project again. However, if @HongPong was to port admin_menu to D8 and we have an stable release I will port admin_menu_navbar, even thought I still think that admin_toolbar is a better project.

BTW, I'm the maintainer of admin_menu_navbar.

Comment #6

darol100 CreditAttribution: darol100 as a volunteer and commented 10 November 2015 at 00:34

I'm assuming that @HongPong is going to be porting D8 version of admin_menu. I have added you as the person that is porting the admin_menu at #2605272: [admin_menu] Administration menu (see Admin Toolbar). Feel free to change it if you are not longer interested on porting admin_menu.