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A few years ago I created several web software, e.g. blogs, content management systems. I didn't complete any of them, but that's beside the point. At least three of those software had some kind of command-line interface included in the admin panel. It's actually quite simple, it basically looked like this:

[

Area with lots of results

]
[Text box you can use to enter commands] [Execute button]

The advantage of this is that you can add a nearly unlimited (okay, that's greatly exaggerated) amount of commands and it wouldn't make setting pages unnecessarily huge. Another advantage would be that you could add commands that are not important enough to be shown elsewhere. You could add a help command that would show a list of all available commands and the usage of them. You can even use existing functions.

This wouldn't replace the normal setting pages (because that would be inadvisable), it would only add an interface that would allow some functions to be executed from one page.

Honest question, what kind of commands would you like to run from that area? 

hah, that's funny ... back in the 90s people wanted to replace /rebuild their old software with a browser based variant (we're still migrating in the company I'm employed) .. IMHO the only thingy for the command line would be the database backup (-> cron job)

I always wanted to build something like that!

It's for sore something that not many people would use (just the same amount that use a CLI normally).
The way I see it is, if you know what you are doing, you open a (javascript) console-like thingy and type:

Code: [Select]

ban TE

or

Code: [Select]

rm nick Spuds

or stuff like that.
Just another way to play with stuff.

The mandatory step for that is to have xml responses for *everything*, then it should be "easy" to implement.

We could even write mobile apps to use the api for admin stuff.