[wp-ui] Admin theme-ing

[Michael Kuhlmann]

The obvious "benefit" of being able to theme the admin area is to carry 
over the branding from the front-end to the back-end. John already 
mentioned two good ways of cleaning it up and this plugin 
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/white-label-cms/ would certainly 
take care of the rest. I don't think the option to theme the admin area 
is the best one either, even though I *love* to theme virtually anything 
I can get my hands on -- some things are better left alone to retain 
simplicity.

Here's just one scenario of how this could go south very quickly: A 
designer decides to fully rebrand, redesign the backend and revert to a 
horizontal menu a la WP 2.0, at her client's request. She decides to 
bail the site/maintenance after a year or two and the menu is all out of 
whack, come the next upgrade. Now, the client has a funky menu and it's 
all WordPress' fault. The client could just get rid of the custom admin 
theme altogether, but that would mean having to re-learn to the 
navigation. Again, it's all WordPress' fault. Well, not really... but 
you get what I mean. This is typically how a CMS gets pounded on.

Mike

On 6/3/2010 3:08 PM, Toon Van de Putte wrote:
> Is all of this well documented? The Screen Options I know about, but 
> the custom fields thing is new to me. But my main argument was 
> /against/ admin themes. I don't see the point, frankly, besides some 
> superficial cosmetic stuff.
>
> On Thu, Jun 3, 2010 at 11:54 PM, John O'Nolan <john.wp at onolan.org 
> <mailto:john.wp at onolan.org>> wrote:
>
>     Hi Toon,
>     You can already hide many panels via the Screen Options tab, and
>     custom fields are fairly easy to customise now via the
>     functions.php file of a theme, no need for a plugin!
>
>     Hope that helps
>
>     John
>
>
>
>     On 3 Jun 2010, at 22:36, Toon Van de Putte wrote:
>
>>     I don't think that is a good idea. I think it's one of those
>>     features that sets Wordpress apart from, say, Drupal and that
>>     makes Wordpress much more usable out-of-the-box.
>>     The standardized look 'n' feel of the admin is one of the reasons
>>     I really like Wordpress. It just works, and it makes sense that a
>>     well-designed admin interface doesn't need themes.
>>     What I would like is the ability to show/hide certain panels,
>>     have more flexibility in how custom fields are integrated
>>     (without resorting to a plugin), etc. But the basic layout and
>>     functionality of the admin does not need theming, imho.
>>
>>     On Thu, Jun 3, 2010 at 11:02 PM, Luke Gedeon
>>     <luke.gedeon at gmail.com <mailto:luke.gedeon at gmail.com>> wrote:
>>
>>         Call me crazy, but it seems like the easiest way to solve the
>>         look and feel issues with the admin is to make it as easy to
>>         theme the admin as it is to theme the site.
>>
>>         Give designers a while and see what ideas happen. We can then
>>         take the best ideas and build them into the default theme.
>>
>>         To encourage theme development we need to:
>>         1. Set-up an admin theme repository.
>>         2. Add a page inside admin to choose and install new admin
>>         themes.
>>         3. Make admin themes editable in theme editor tool.
>>         4. Allow users to select admin themes separate from site
>>         themes but allow theme designers to ship
>>         matching/complementary themes.
>>
>>         I have got to be missing something????
>>
>>         -------------------------------------------
>>         Luke Gedeon
>>         http://luke.gedeon.name
>>
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