Jazz Up Your Wordpress Admin

You would think that the design of the WordPress administration area would be a reflection of the power and sophistication that is WordPress, but it’s not. Granted, it is functional, but it could be so much better.

In an attempt to remedy this, a few people have created themes to restyle and increase usability of the administration area. Here is a roundup of available admin themes I could gather together. If you know of any others please let me know and I will add them to the list.

1. WP Tiger Administration
WordPress Tiger Administration is a plug-in for WordPress that provides a new OS X Tiger look-and-feel to the WordPress admin pages. The plug-in solely relies on the magic of CSS: none of WordPress’s core files are changed, and as soon as you deactivate the plug-in, the original display theme is back in effect.

Compatibility: Currently this design is compatible with Safari and Firefox. If the browser is incapable of displaying CSS2 (Internet Explorer), it will not display the updated design, and will default back to the original WordPress design.

2. WP Barunio Administration
This Wordpress plugin changes the layout and visual design of the default Wordpress administration area. In addition to changes in the color scheme, it modifies the layout so that submenus are placed on the left side of the page.

Controlled completely by a plug-in and does not require editing of WordPress core files.

Compatibility: Currently this design is compatible with Safari and Firefox. If the browser is incapable of displaying CSS2 (Internet Explorer), it will not display the updated design, and will default back to the original WordPress design.

3. SpotMilk WP Admin Theme
SpotMilk is an admin theme for WordPress, which is originally inspired by Spotlight on Mac OS X Tiger and the Milk theme by Max Rudberg, and its overall main layout remains based on the default admin theme that comes with WP.

Controlled completely by a plug-in and does not require editing of WordPress core files. There is also a darker, black version available.

Compatibility: Tested in Safari 3, Firefox 2, Camino 1.5, Opera 9.2, and IE6 & 7, and it should be displayed almost identically on every browser.

4. Js Style SpotMilk Admin
Js Style SpotMilk Admin is based on SpotMilk Admin with a few cosmetic changes to the CSS and added support for Spotmilk Admin Drop down Menus.

Controlled by a plug-in and does not require editing of WordPress core files by default. Optionally you can change the WordPress login screen by replacing a few lines of your wp-admin/wp-admin.css file.

Compatibility: No information provided. Reported to work well in the latest versions of Firefox and Internet Explorer.

5. Planet X7 WordPress Admin Theme
I don’t know much about this one as the site is largely non-English. Looks to be controlled by a plug-in which doesn’t require editing the core WordPress files.

Compatibility: This plugin works with Opera, Firefox, Internet Explorer 7 and, Internet Explorer 6 (some minor problems with IE6 are possible).

6. Wordtunes Admin Theme
Wordtunes give your WordPress admin an iTunes like header and new color scheme. Controlled by a plugin and does not require editing of the core WordPress files.

Compatibility: This plugin has been tested with Mozilla 1.7, Firefox 1.x, Opera 8.x. Some bugs possible with Internet Explorer.

7. WordPress NiceAdmin
NiceAdmin was built from the SpotMilk Theme, the Milk theme by Max Rudberg, and its overall main layout remains based on the default admin theme that comes with WP 2.1.

Controlled by a plug-in and does not require editing of the core WordPress files.

Compatibility: None listed but works fine in FireFox for me.

8. Shuttle Admin Theme
Probably the best looking admin theme for WordPress. A shame it will probably never be finished.

Compatibility: Hasn’t been released so technically it’s not compatible with anything.

9. Digg Styled WordPress Admin Theme
A WordPress admin theme designed to look like Digg. Not officially released yet.

Compatibility: Hasn’t been released so technically it’s not compatible with anything.

10. aenonfiredesign WordPress2 Admin Theme
A very well laid out, clean and simple replacement for the default WordPress theme. Requires replacing your “wp-admin” folder so be sure to make a backup first.

Compatibility: None listed but should work fine with most modern browsers.