Andrea Porotti

With Smart Admin Search you can quickly find contents in the WordPress dashboard without going up and down on the admin menu.
Just click on the top-right link or press a keyboard shortcut to open the search box, then type what you are looking for. Easy!
Currently Smart Admin Search can find:
<ul>
<li>admin menu items</li>
<li>posts</li>
<li>pages</li>
<li>users</li>
<li>media</li>
<li>custom post types contents</li>
</ul>
Configuration
Settings for the plugin are available on the Settings -> Smart Admin Search page.
Some things you can do in the settings page:
<ul>
<li>configure the keyboard shortcut to open the search box.</li>
<li>disable search functions you don’t need.</li>
<li>change layout of the search link on the admin bar</li>
</ul>
Permissions
The search box can be used by users of any role. Each user will get results available for the assigned role.
For pages and posts results, these actions will be triggered on result selection, according to the user permissions:
<ul>
<li>edit item</li>
<li>view item</li>
<li>show a message if no access to the item is allowed</li>
</ul>
Support
If you find any errors or compatibility issues with other plugins, please create a new topic in the support forum. Thanks!
Privacy
This plugin does not collect any user data. 
It does not set any cookies and it does not connect to any third-party services. 
All the plugin data is stored only on the WordPress database.

Smart Admin Search

This plugin adds a search engine to the WordPress dashboard.

Stephanie Leary

This dashboard widget provides a simple notepad. The widget settings allow you to choose which roles can edit the notes, and which roles can merely read them. Version 1.30 also adds support for custom roles and integrates with the <a href="https://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/members/" rel="ugc">Members plugin</a> for role settings.
You can display the contents of your notepad using a template tag and/or shortcode. The widget permissions apply to these tags as well: only users with permission to read the notes will see the notes on the front end. You can use <code>div#dashboard-notes</code> in your theme’s CSS file to style the notes.
<h4>Translations</h4>
<ul>
<li>Belorussian (be_BY) by <a href="http://fatcow.com" rel="nofollow ugc">FatCow</a>.</li>
<li>Bulgarian (bg_BG) by <a href="http://www.siteground.com/" rel="nofollow ugc">SiteGround</a>.</li>
<li>Dutch (nl_NL) by Axel Vanderhaeghen</li>
<li>German (de_DE) by Guido Kerkewitz</li>
<li>Italian (it_IT) translation by Francesco Bevivino</li>
<li>Romanian (ro_RO) by Web Hosting Geeks (<a href="http://webhostinggeeks.com/" rel="nofollow ugc">Web 
Geek Sciense</a></li>
<li>Swedish (se_SV) by <a href="http://www.rabatt.se" rel="nofollow ugc">Rabatt</a></li>
<li>Ukranian (uk_UA) by <a href="http://getvoip.com/blog" rel="nofollow ugc">Michael Yunat</a></li>
</ul>
<h3>Translations</h3>
If you would like to send me a translation, please write to me through <a href="http://sillybean.net/about/contact/" rel="nofollow ugc">my contact page</a>. Let me know which plugin you’ve translated and how you would like to be credited. I will write you back so you can attach the files in your reply.

Dashboard Notepad

The very simplest of notepads for your Dashboard.

Smart Admin Search vs Dashboard Notepad