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Bonsai Dashboard self-updates

WordPress admin plugin for The Bonsai Digital Collective — replaces the default wp-admin dashboard with a single branded panel: a welcome message plus a quick-links grid (Pages, Posts, Theme Setup, Team, Analytics, Support).

by Ben Ervine / The Bonsai Digital Collective · github.com/bonsai-systems/bonsai-dashboard · website

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Install

No release zip yet. The repository archive installs, but the folder name will carry the branch suffix and updates will not flow:

wp plugin install https://github.com/bonsai-systems/bonsai-dashboard/archive/refs/heads/main.zip

Ships its own WordPress updater (Plugin Update Checker), so new versions show up under Dashboard → Updates.

Readme github.com/bonsai-systems/bonsai-dashboard ↗

WordPress admin plugin for The Bonsai Digital Collective — replaces the default wp-admin dashboard with a single branded panel: a welcome message plus a quick-links grid (Pages, Posts, Theme Setup, Team, Analytics, Support).

  • Maintained by: Ben Ervine / The Bonsai Digital Collective
  • Version: 1.1.0
  • Requires: WordPress 6.0+, PHP 8.0+
  • Dependencies: yahnis-elsts/plugin-update-checker (bundled in vendor/).

What it does

Every default dashboard widget (At a Glance, Activity, Quick Draft, WordPress Events & News, Site Health Status — plus anything a third-party plugin has added) is removed, not hidden, so the Bonsai panel is the only thing on the dashboard. WordPress's own dismissible welcome banner is disabled too, since this plugin's own welcome panel replaces it.

Link Shown when Target
Pages Always edit.php?post_type=page
Posts Always edit.php
Theme Setup Always admin.php?page=theme-general-settings
Team A post type matching the configured slug (default team) is registered edit.php?post_type={slug}
Analytics An Analytics URL is set (below) That URL, new tab
Custom cards Any rows added under Settings → Bonsai Dashboard Whatever URL each card specifies, new tab if set
Support Always — defaults to the Bonsai support desk That URL, new tab

Team is hidden automatically on a site that doesn't have a matching post type registered, rather than linking to a 404 or permission error.

Settings

Settings → Bonsai Dashboard: welcome heading/text (defaults to Bonsai Digital Collective boilerplate copy, editable or clearable per site), Analytics URL, Support URL (defaults to https://bonsaidigitalcollective.zendesk.com/hc/en-gb/requests/new, editable per site), the Team post type slug (in case a theme registers it under a different name, e.g. staff), and a custom cards repeater for anything else a site needs on its dashboard (a client portal, a booking system, a shared drive) — each row is a label, URL, dashicon class, and an "open in new tab" checkbox. A row with no label or URL is dropped when settings are saved. See includes/class-settings.php.

Also under Settings → Bonsai Dashboard, an optional colour overrides section: welcome panel background/text, quick-link card icon/text, and quick-link card hover background/icon-text (colour picker, clearable). Left blank, each falls back to the Bonsai brand colours (or the active theme's ACF brand colour fields, where set) — see Bonsai_Dashboard_Widgets::print_brand_colour_overrides() in includes/class-dashboard.php.

Updates

Self-updates from its GitHub repo (Bonsai-Systems/bonsai-dashboard) using Plugin Update Checker. Updates appear in Dashboard → Updates.

To release a new version:

  1. Bump Version: header and BONSAI_DASHBOARD_VERSION in bonsai-dashboard.php.
  2. Add a CHANGELOG.md entry and push to main.
  3. Create a GitHub Release tagged vX.Y.Z and attach a zip of the plugin folder (include vendor/, exclude .git).

vendor/ is committed so the plugin works as a plain ZIP install with no build step.

Uninstall

uninstall.php removes this plugin's one option (bonsai_dashboard_settings). No other persisted state exists.

Development notes

See CLAUDE.md for architecture and working conventions.