We're currently toying with the idea of building a user interface that lives in the Admin area ("back-end"), effectively meaning that those interfaces will be theme independent. The code that actually renders the user interface will live in a plugin (not touching WP core).
To make this less vague, we are roughly looking to do the following:
- Users can belong to one or more Groups (custom post type). For each Group, we render a menu item in the left hand side "Admin menu".
- We render a page for each Group (accessed by clicking on the menu item) that shows Announcements (also a custom post type) for that Group as well as a calendar for that Group (also based on a custom post type).
What does best practice and / or Wordpress development guidelines say about this though? Is it a good idea to have user interfaces in the back end, or a bad idea (and if so, why)? I'm trying to make a strong case either for or against this decision.