Can a users profile be put under the dashboard menu

Question

I was reading an article today and it covered some very valid points on user experience with WordPress. One of its points was that the profile should go under the Dashboard menu. I like this idea but not sure if it could be done.

Answer 1

You could just write a custom Dashboard Widget:

Tutorial

How to Add Custom Dashboard Widgets in WordPress

In this article we will show you how you can customize dashboard widgets in WordPress.

Documentation

Dashboard Widgets API

The Dashboard Widgets API (added in WP 2.7) makes it very simple to add new widgets to the administration dashboard. Doing so requires working knowledge of PHP and the WordPress Plugin API, but to plugin or theme authors familiar with hooking actions and filters it only takes a few minutes and can be a great way to make your plugin even more useful.

Answer 2

If I understood the Question correctly, you want something like this:

And for that, some manipulation of the global $submenu is necessary:

// Priority 999 == execute this the latest as possible
add_action( 'admin_menu', 'move_profile_submenu_wpse_43053', 999 );

function move_profile_submenu_wpse_43053() 
{
    global $submenu;

    // Get the key for the submenu Users.php -> Profile.php
    $replace = find_profile_key_wpse_43053( $submenu['users.php'] );

    if( $replace )
    {
        $submenu['index.php'][] = $submenu['users.php'][ $replace ];
        unset( $submenu['users.php'][ $replace ] ); 
    }
}

function find_profile_key_wpse_43053( $sub_menu )
{
    foreach( $sub_menu as $key => $value )
        if( in_array( 'profile.php', $value ) )
            return $key;

    return false;
}