How to Create Shortcuts in the ExpressionEngine Control Panel

March 07, 2011

There exists a handy tool to create shortcuts to any location in your ExpressionEngine CP. You’ve probably already noticed it and wondered what it does. It’s at the far-right of the primary navigation.

If you’d like to add a shortcut to the primary navigation, all you have to do is visit the page for which you’d like to create a shortcut and click the + Add button. You’ll be redirected to the Main Menu Manager section of your profile. Here you’ll see a list of your shortcuts. If you have more than one and you’d like to reorder them, just change the order numbers in the adjacent text fields. You can also rename the shortcut in the Current Tabs column.

These shortcuts may be useful for a lot of things:

• A new entry page in a channel to which you frequently post
• The edit page (You can even have specific filter settings, but it’s a little more advanced. If anyone is interested, I can cover that later.)
• Member management pages (The members page can also have specific filter settings)
• The comment moderation page
• A settings page for an add-on like Taxonomy or AJW Selected Items
• etc.

Finally, if you’d like to remove a shortcut, all you need to do is visit the Main Menu Manager page and clear the fields for that shortcut and click update. The fastest way to get to the Main Menu Manager is to click the + Add button. You can just delete the shortcut created once you arrive.