Feature Request: custom topbar items filter

Thank you so much for shipping this so quickly. I’m loving what you’ve built so far.

For this change, I appreciate the clean API design (anchoring, priority, capability gating, and settings-integration all handled in one filter).

This reply is mainly informational. I wanted to follow up with a quick example for anyone else picking this up, since a few people have asked how to register one item that works correctly whether BrikPanel’s topbar is active or not.

Adding a top bar item that works with both the native WP admin bar and BrikPanel’s topbar

The two hooks have different contracts, so you can’t reuse one callback directly, but you can share the render logic. Here’s a small helper that does the branching for you:

php

/**
 * Register a top bar item that works whether BrikPanel's topbar is
 * rendering or not. Falls back to the native admin bar automatically.
 */
function my_register_topbar_item( $id, array $args ) {
    $render = $args['render'];

    add_action( 'init', function () use ( $id, $args, $render ) {
        $brikpanel_active = is_admin()
            && class_exists( 'Brikpanel_Dashboard_Topbar' )
            && Brikpanel_Dashboard_Topbar::is_enabled();

        if ( $brikpanel_active ) {
            add_filter( 'brikpanel_topbar_items', function ( $items ) use ( $id, $args, $render ) {
                $items[ $id ] = [
                    'label'    => $args['label'] ?? $id,
                    'position' => $args['position'] ?? 'right',
                    'before'   => $args['before'] ?? 'user',
                    'priority' => $args['priority'] ?? 10,
                    'settings' => $args['settings'] ?? true,
                    'callback' => $render,
                ];
                return $items;
            } );
            return;
        }

        // Native WP admin bar fallback.
        add_action( 'admin_bar_menu', function ( $wp_admin_bar ) use ( $id, $args, $render ) {
            ob_start();
            $render();
            $html = ob_get_clean();
            if ( trim( $html ) === '' ) {
                return;
            }
            $wp_admin_bar->add_node( [
                'id'     => $id,
                'parent' => $args['parent'] ?? 'top-secondary',
                'title'  => $html,
                'meta'   => $args['meta'] ?? [],
            ] );
        }, $args['priority'] ?? 10 );
    }, 20 ); // must run after BrikPanel's own init (priority 10)
}

Usage: for example, I created an environment badge that only shows outside production:

php

my_register_topbar_item( 'my-env-badge', [
    'label'    => 'Environment badge',
    'settings' => false, // always on, no toggle in BrikPanel settings
    'position' => 'left',
    'after'    => 'live',
    'render'   => function () {
        $env = wp_get_environment_type();
        if ( 'production' === $env ) {
            return;
        }
        echo '<span style="padding:4px 12px;background:#1d4ed8;color:#fff;border-radius:8px;font-size:11px;font-weight:600;text-transform:uppercase;">'
            . esc_html( ucfirst( $env ) ) . '</span>';
    },
] );

Notes:

• The init priority 20 matters. BrikPanel’s own bootstrap (brikpanel_init_admin) also hooks init at the default priority 10, and requires the topbar file there. If your check runs at the same priority, load order determines whether the class exists yet, which is inconsistent across setups. Hooking at 20 guarantees you check after BrikPanel has had a chance to load.
• Brikpanel_Dashboard_Topbar::is_enabled() respects the store owner’s own master on/off switch for the topbar, so this correctly falls back to the native bar if they’ve turned it off without deactivating the plugin.
• Valid before/after anchors on the BrikPanel side: brand, live, search, create, notifications, hidden_notices, custom_link, view_site, user. Unrecognized anchors just fall back to the default slot instead of erroring.
• 'settings' => false keeps your item out of BrikPanel’s Settings → Dashboard toggle list if you don’t want the owner switching it off. Leave it true (or omit) if you do.

Hope this saves someone the debugging round trip I went through.

Thanks again for the fast turnaround on this.