Hey. Certain areas of the admin panel are hidden from users depending on a user’s assigned “Role.” The default user roles in WordPress are: Administrator, Editor, Author, Contributor and Subscriber.
Being able to assign users different roles allows site owners to control what users are or not able to do with their site. This is useful for a number of reasons.
For example, the Editor role enables a user to publish and manage posts via the admin area. However, Editor’s are restricted from accessing areas such as the plugin area. This is good for both security and privacy reasons: There is no chance of an editor accidentally deleting an important plugin or installing a malicious one.
Here is a good article which explains all the different user roles in WordPress: http://wp.tutsplus.com/articles/general/a-laymans-view-of-the-wordpress-user-roles/.
I hope this explains why you are not able to see certain areas of the admin panel when logged in as an “Editor.” Let me know if anything needs clarifying.
thank you for your detailed explanation. i thought only the default panels will disappear but my install plugin panels doesn’t appear as well. My custom panels such as virual form builder, gallery, cs testimonials, slideshows, etc all not showing in the EDITOR admin panels, why that? If wordpress will limit certain roles to user then i think the installed plugins found on their admin panels should show especially the EDITOR role. that’s my suggestion.
You could use a plugin to change what a user in the “Editor” is able to do in the backend. The “User Role Editor” plugin would enable you to do this: http://ww.wp.xz.cn/plugins/user-role-editor/. There also a number of plugins you could choose from the WPORG plugin repository: http://ww.wp.xz.cn/plugins/search.php?q=user+capabilities.
