WPLift is supported by its audience. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.
CommandBar For WP Admin: Navigate Your WordPress Site Like You’re DC’s Flash
The WordPress admin dashboard, also called WP admin, is the mission control for your blogging or business website. It lets you create and manage pages, change styling with the help of themes, add functionality using plugins, and do much more. However, you don’t get any shortcuts or actions for quick navigation, meaning it could take you a while to get around pages and complete specific tasks.
That’s about to change, though, because a new plugin offers a fast and easy way to control your WordPress site.
CommandBar for WP Admin is a plugin that lets you move quickly through pages, take contextual actions related to the content, and search for anything on your site. It’s designed to boost your productivity with quick actions and shortcuts to get stuff done in the WordPress admin and Gutenberg editor.
But how easy is it to set up and configure? And is it really the fastest way to navigate your WordPress website? Get the answer to these questions and more in this hands-on review of CommandBar for WP Admin.
CommandBar for WP Admin: Overview
CommandBar for WP Admin enables you to find specific pages and content within a few clicks. It’s built to drive step-change improvement in WordPress navigation, from finding an item to editing it in minutes. The plugin works with both WordPress admin and the popular Gutenberg editor, making it easy to control various aspects of your site.
Here are the key features of CommandBar:
- Spotlight-style search: By offering instant search for anything on your site, including posts, images, or even orders and products, the plugin makes navigating WP admin blazingly fast.
- Pro shortcuts: It’s not just pages, though. All critical actions in WordPress admin, like post creation, are just a few clicks away. Plus, you can add custom keyboard shortcuts for any common task, such as changing a post’s category or inserting an image.
- Contextual editor actions: CommandBar is useful for editing actions, too. You can jump to recently edited items or take contextually relevant actions quickly while editing a post or page.
Hands-On With CommandBar for WordPress
Now for the exciting part: I’ll show you how to install CommandBar and use it to control your WordPress website.
First, download CommandBar for WP Admin from its WordPress.org directory listing or official website. Then, log into your WordPress dashboard and install it via the Plugins tab. Alternatively, you can search for “CommandBar” in the plugin library and click “Install Now.”
Launching CommandBar
To access CommandBar in the WordPress dashboard after it’s installed, enter CTRL + K (on Windows or Linux) or ⌘K (on Mac). The shortcut will open CommandBar in a modal in the center of the page. Alternatively, you can click the “Find anything…” button in the header to launch the plugin.
Searching Pages, Posts, Media, etc.
Once the plugin is installed, it’ll automatically hook into your existing pages, media, orders, etc. This makes it quick and convenient to find anything you have available in WordPress. For example, you can search for posts by entering their title or keywords in CommandBar:
The plugin also shows a preview of the post content, which can be really helpful for seeing what it’s about and how it’s organized.
Plus, you can change the post’s title without having to open the post. Any changes will be reflected under the Revisions section in CommandBar:
If you have WooCommerce installed on your site, you can also search for orders using parameters such as the customer’s email and billing address.
Navigating Through WordPress
In addition to content search, CommandBar offers navigation commands that let you quickly jump between sections of the WordPress admin dashboard. For example, if you type “comments” in the plugin field, it’ll take you to your comments section within seconds.
CommandBar ships with some navigation shortcuts already set, but you can set your own shortcuts for going to a specific section. To do so, hover over the section you want to create a shortcut for and click “Add shortcut.”
Using Contextual Actions
Another thing you can do with CommandBar is take contextual actions. This are small but important actions that let you get stuff done quickly.
Let’s say you want to edit the price of a product you created in WooCommerce. Instead of scrolling down the product page, you can just type “Price” in CommandBar to jump to the relevant section.
Content Creation with Gutenberg
CommandBar has deep integration with the Gutenberg editor, which makes it easy to perform content-related actions.
Let’s say you decide you want to add an image to a post. In CommandBar, type the phrase “image” and click “Insert image at cursor” to execute an action. Then, search for and choose a relevant image to insert it in your post. (P.S. You can also add a caption and alt text to an image before inserting it inside your post’s content).
And besides adding an image to your post, you can change its title and category, as well as preview it before you hit that publish button.
CommandBar also offers quick actions for adding pages, posts, orders, etc. Plus, it keeps track of the pages you visited recently so you can quickly get back to any work in progress.
Overall, CommandBar for WP Admin is a really handy tool for sifting through and performing actions on your WordPress website. It’s incredibly fast, too, and doesn’t have any competition at the time of writing.
CommandBar for WP Admin Pricing
CommandBar is free to use on WordPress websites. You can access all the features discussed above without paying any fee.
Final Verdict
WordPress admin is powerful and brimming with exciting options. However, navigating it swiftly can be challenging, especially if your admin has bulked up a little over time.
Fortunately, CommandBar for WP Admin exists to help you control your site and get stuff done faster than you could ever do on your own. You get a robust search function, handy shortcuts, and contextual editor actions to control all the important stuff that keeps your site working well and attracting audiences.
Whether you’re a professional user, an agency, or a content team, the plugin will save you valuable time that you can spend on other critical tasks, such as improving the experience of your website visitors.