A new themed and updated Admin dashboard
I'd really like to see a complete revamp of the dashboard - updated to something a little more modern and easier to follow.
Found this great admin theme that lets you know what I mean. (no need for a login or password)
http://themeforest.net/item/admintasiapowerful-backend-admin-user-interface/57479
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Erstwhile founder
I'd love to get feedback from other members on this. Anyone else interested in admin panel themes? If so, what kind of style?
Thanks,
Andrew
Yeh, I'd like to get feedback too - I'm thinking that they would be popular!
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Keeper of the Dark Chocolate
Might be a good idea. Seems like the theme developers who used to do admin themes no longer do so.
Or at the very least write up (or point folks to) a good tutorial on how to do it.
I suggest against it, as its one of the better things about wordpress (standard admin theme).
As much as I like to have things tinkered with, I too would suggest against it.
One of the advantages of MU is that it's Wordpress. A lot of people are familiar with the architecture and interface and know how to use it. Those that aren't yet familiar with it, are learning it through us. All positive things for our endeavors.
Once you start skinning that back-end with something custom, that all goes out the window. People who already know the WordPress interface need to learn a new one, people who aren't familiar with WordPress are learning your proprietary interface instead of the base one.
I love this idea. Just because people are used to wordpress doesnt mean that there shouldnt be options to restyle the admin. They have the choice if they want to keep the classic wordpress or not.
That being said I think the best way to develop this would be to do it as a plugin. That way users can activate it if they want. The best thing I could see happen is a top horizontal menu bar. I was never really fond of the vertical menu when wordpress switched.
Also there just arent many options out there for admin themes. The best and most well known probably being fluency I would say?
I definateley have a big yes vote on this.
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Thanks for all the feedback on this guys, it's very much appreciated!
I love the idea, but just change it via CSS not re-write the backend.
-Brad
the fluency theme by dean j robinson is just like this and it is compatible with WPMU 2.9.2. It is a plugin so user can activate or disable it as they choose. Just something to look at.
Keeper of the Dark Chocolate
Link: http://deanjrobinson.com/projects/fluency-admin/
edit: From that page:
Fluency Admin has been tested in the latest versions of Safari, Firefox, Opera, Camino and Internet Explorer. Users of Camino, Opera and Internet Explorer may experience some display “issues” to to each browsers particular css-handling ability.
Internet Explorer 6 is NOT supported. It is an 8 year old browser which has now been superseded twice. Upgrade. Please.
Internet Explorer 7 works with the exception of a few display bugs. Internet Explorer 8 works pretty well except for the lack of CSS3.
That would be an issue for some.
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I had been looking for something like this. Fluency really does a nice job. It would be nice to be able to tweak or customize the admin area a bit more. I agree that straying too far from the default wp admin takes away most of the advantages to users of using wp in the first place, but that's probably more of a "best practices" thing than whether or not the functionality should even be available.
yea i agree.
i actually dove in to the fluency plugin and looked around to see if it could be stripped down and used as a framework for other admin themes but I just lacked the time and energy to do it. I may try and pick up where a left off down the road.
