I want this dashboard plugin, but know that coding it myself will be a nightmare. Any plans to create a distribute this as a plugin file?

thanks,
Maraya


if (current_user_can('publish_posts')) :
widget_stuff();
endif;


It works best with ‘capabilities’, actual things you can do, like ‘edit_users’, ‘manage_options’, ‘read’ etc, but you can also use it with role labels like ‘admin’, ‘editor’ etc. If you really want to check multiple role labels you could just have more than one clause in you IF statement ( if (current_user_can(‘editor’) OR current_user_can(‘admin’) ), but it would probably be better to just identify one capability that the roles share and check for that instead (like maybe ‘edit_others_posts’, which ‘authors’ dont’ have). If you’re not sure what capabilities are shared by certain roles I recommend the Role Manager plugin, it gives you extra control over roles in wordpress and also just helps you visualize what’s going on with the different role levels and capabilities.

I have been playing with the code below but with no luck just yet:

//Pre-check user status and role
if(is_user_logged_in) { // only if there is a user logged in
$user = wp_get_current_user();
$user_roles = $user->roles; // an array of roles
foreach($user_roles as $user_role)
{
if($user_role=='administrator' || $user_role=='intern')
}
}
//DASHBOARD CODE
function assignments_add_dashboard_widgets() {
wp_add_dashboard_widget('assignments', 'Assignment Sheet', 'assignments_dashboard_widget_function');
}
// Hoook into the dashboard
add_action('wp_dashboard_setup', 'assignments_add_dashboard_widgets');

Just a quick note to thank you for the Codex addition, and also for the note you added about the Dashboard RSS feeds.

I’m just starting to explore WP hacking. I have experience with PHP, CSS, and XHTML, but putting all the bits together (and figuring out where to put them!) is still tricky.

Big thanks for shining the light,
Crystal