May 24, 2022

Admin Bar User Switching Plugin

Extends the excellent User Switching plugin by John Blackbourn by adding a User Switching to the admin bar for quick and easy user switching.

This plugin was originally developed by Mark Wilkinson.

An admin bar “Switch to User” option is provided which on hover provides a search box where you can query a user to switch to. The results are links to switch to that user. This plugin is great for when you are building sites for clients and it is beneficial to see the site as your logged in client see’s it.

And there is an optional mode where you can use a custom keyboard combination, say ‘su’, and it activates the form where you search for users, and then you can use keyboard arrows to navigate the list of results, and the return key to switch to the selected user. The same combo can be used to focus the ‘Switch Off’ link, following a return to simulate a click.

To activate this feature and set the custom keyboard combination, aka magic word, you need to use the abus_ajax_args and add a ‘magicWord’ variable.

Note that keyboard navigation is not dependant on the custom keyboard combination, and can be used out of the box.

Installation

To install the plugin:

Upload to the /wp-content/plugins/ directory
Activate the plugin through the ‘Plugins’ menu in WordPress

Screenshots

A Switch to user item is added to the WordPress admin bar to allow you to search for a user to switch to.

FAQ

How do I switch to a user?

As with the User Switching plugin you can still use the “Switch To” link on the users overview page – nothing changes there. However the point of this plugin is that it gives you a Switch to User link in the WordPress admin bar. This reveals a search box where you can search for a users username. The results of this search are clickable to “Switch To” that user.

What can be entered into the username search box?

You can enter a user ID, part of / exact username, URL, email, or display name, WordPress automatically chooses the best fields to match to based on your input. See here for more information on wildcard searches. Clicking submit with nothing in the search box will search all users except the current logged in user.

Has the plugin any filters or actions for developers?

It does indeed, although not too many! The following filters can be used.

abus_switch_to_text – allows developers to change the text that is displayed in the admin menu which, when on hover shows the search box
abus_form_output – this filter can be used to change the markup of the form which is used in the plugin for user searching
abus_switch_back_text – this filter is used to change the text shown to switch back to the original logged in user
abus_switch_to_url – this filter is used to alter the redirect url for different users as the filter is passed to switch to user user object
abus_ajax_args – this is used to activate the magic word combo as described in plugin description, ‘magicWord’ variable can be added to the array to activate the feature

Changelog

1.4 – 2021-17-12

Fixed – Fixed Undefined Variable $port.

1.3 – 2021-22-10

Fixed – Deprecated error.

1.2 – 2020-02-11

Update – WordPress 5.3 compatibility
Tweak – Update and modernize the codebase

1.1.1

Only enqueue js if the user is logged in
Do not seperately enqueue jQuery as it is already stated as a dependency

1.1

Add keyboard navigation
Add magic-word feature, keyboard-only usage of the plugin
Focus search input on clicking the admin-bar button – thanks to @shadyvb for work on these features
Allow search on any user fields rather than just the login or username
Make the search query parameters extensible with a filter so developers can easily edit them
Escape calls to $_POST in the ajax search function

1.0.6

Make the capability (edit_users by default) needed to be able to switch to users be filterable.

1.0.5

Escape instances of add_query_arg in accordance with https://make.wordpress.org/plugins/2015/04/20/fixing-add_query_arg-and-remove_query_arg-usage/

1.0.4

Correct an issues which could result in a PHP error when the plugin is active and the User Switching plugin is not active.
Add filter for the switch to redirect url named abus_switch_to_url – this allows devs to alter the redirect url for different users as the filter is passed to switch to user user object.

1.0.3

Output styles on both front and backend to make the form look correct when results are returned.
Create a filter for developers to amend the styles as needed to match their theme
Use correct hook for enqueuing javascript file
Make sure the current logged in user does not appear in the search results

1.0.2

Thanks for @johnbillion for pointing out the incorrect capabilities check for switch_to_user. This now checks against edit_user so users who can edit users will be the Switch to link.

1.0.1

Use switch_to_user user capability instead of is_super_admin when checking whether to display Switch to link in admin bar.

1.0

Make the Switch to User link reveals a user search box
Uses AJAX to populate the user switch to list which therefore makes the plugin more compatible for sites with lots of users.

0.1

Initial release.