WordCamp Europe 2014 notes - 1.3: Styling the WordPress admin


I’m at WordCamp Europe in Sofia - taking rough notes on some of the talks

Konstantin Dankov http://2014.europe.wordcamp.org/session/konstantin-dankov/

sketchnotes by @studionetting

Awesome sketchnotes by @studionetting

  • Why style the admin?
    • make things simpler for the user
    • save time by optimising workflows - supporting power users - removing unnecessary steps: e.g. jump straight to a particular page.
    • Branding - sometimes larger organisations would like their own branding inside
      • Important to not go overboard! Use a little to do a lot.
  • Why NOT to do it
    • There’s a large cost to supporting it:
      • There’s a lot of it!
    • Clashes with plugin styles: can cause plugins to break
  • Consider the experience of editors vs admins

  • Adding a custom post type
    • Defaults (all overridable when registering the post type)
      • It goes to the bottom of the list
      • It has the same icon as other post
  • Using filters the order of menu items can be managed in a more coherent way: explicitly naming the order rather than using index numbers.

  • Preference: When the custom post type is specific to that project then this menu-modifying code should be in the theme, along with the post type itself: moving it out into a plugin just adds complexity.

  • Removing the dashboard to jump straight to the posts: useful if your primary thing is generating new content

  • There’s a lot of complexity in the WP admin css: responsive styles, Right->Left styles. Making modifications are a lot more work than they look