Notifications for Collapsed Admin Menu

Author: Scott Reilly

Version: 1.7

First released: 2010-08-26

Last update: 2025-04-17

Compatibility: WP 4.6 – 6.8.1

Download: [ zip ]

Description:

Highlights the comments and plugins icons in the collapsed admin sidebar menu when notifications are pending.

Extended Description

In the WordPress admin, when the left sidebar menu is expanded WordPress presents you with a highlighted number within the menu itself indicating the number of pending comments (i.e. comments in moderation) and a separate number for the number of plugins with updates.

However, if you collapse the sidebar menu, then there are no visual indications that either types of updates are available. You can view the count of updated plugins by hovering on the plugins icon (or, for comments, by hovering on the comments icon), but you must manually do that to learn of updates.

This plugin enhances the sidebar menu to display a visual indication that comments are in moderation and/or there are plugin updates available. It does so by using a different-colored background for the icon (see the screenshot). The visual indication is also updated when AJAX-based requests are made (so doing an in-line approval of the last pending comment will cause the comments icon background color to return to its non-highlighted color).

By default, the plugin utilizes WordPress’s pending/update count background highlight color, which varies depending on the admin color scheme in use by the user.

NOTE: As the plugin’s name suggests, this plugin only takes effect if the admin sidebar menu is collapsed. Also, the admin user must have JavaScript enabled.

Links: Plugin Homepage | Plugin Directory Page | GitHub | Author Homepage

Find out more at the plugin’s WordPress Plugin Repository page.

Screenshots

Click to see full-size image.

A comparison of a collapsed admin sidebar menu for a stock WordPress installation, with the plugin activated under WP 2.8+/2.9+, and under WP 3.x+ and WP 4.x+.

Installation

Install via the built-in WordPress plugin installer. Or install the plugin code inside the plugins directory for your site (typically /wp-content/plugins/).
Activate the plugin through the ‘Plugins’ admin menu in WordPress

Release Log

1.7 (2025-04-17)

Hardening: Escape filtered and translated data before output
Change: Discontinue unnecessary explicit loading of textdomain
Change: Build string via concatenation rather than using HEREDOC syntax
Change: Note compatibility through WP 6.8+
Change: Note compatibility through PHP 8.3+
Change: Update copyright date (2025)
Unit tests:
- Change: Explicitly define return type for overridden method
- Change: Use expectException() instead of @expectedException comment (for PHPUnit 9 support)

1.6.2 (2024-08-21)

Fix: Fix formatting of code in readme.txt
Change: Note compatibility through WP 6.6+
Change: Update copyright date (2024)
Change: Reduce number of ‘Tags’ from readme.txt
Change: Remove development and testing-related files from release packaging
Unit tests:
- Hardening: Prevent direct web access to bootstrap.php
- Change: In bootstrap, store path to plugin directory in a constant

1.6.1 (2023-06-06)

Change: Note compatibility through WP 6.3+
New: Add .gitignore file
Unit tests:
- Allow tests to run against current versions of WordPress
- New: Add composer.json for PHPUnit Polyfill dependency
- Change: Prevent PHP warnings due to missing core-related generated files

Copyright & Disclaimer

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License
as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2
of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301, USA.

Discussion / Support

Have any questions, comments, or suggestions? Please provide them via the plugin’s WordPress.org support forum. I’ll do my best to reply in a timely fashion and help as best I can.

Unfortunately, I cannot provide guaranteed support, nor do I provide support via any other means.

Was this plugin useful useful to you? Consider giving it a rating. If you’re inclined to give it a poor rating, please first post to the support forum to give me a chance to address or explain the situation.

One reply on “Notifications for Collapsed Admin Menu”

[…] Scott Reilly has once again created a simple plugin that solves a simple problem. It’s called Notifications For Collapsed Admin Menu. This plugin shows a visual notification by providing a background color on the comment and plugin […]