Pimp My WP Dashboard Part III
16 Comments April 16, 2007 2614 Views
Previously in the first two episodes of Pimp My Dashboard, I featured the WP Tiger Admin and Spotmilk admin themes. Just recently, I came across another admin theme for Wordpress.
This new admin theme is called NiceAdmin, created by Douglas Karr of The Marketing Technology Blog.
I got tired of the drab User Interface in WordPress Admin and decided to write this plugin. 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. I utilized the graphics and colors from the WordPress website. The CSS was fine-tuned by Sean of Geek With Laptop.
Screenshots:
Dashboard
Write Post
Presentation
Plugins
My Take:
Compared to the WP Tiger Admin and Spotmilk, the NiceAdmin theme doesn’t really change anything except the colors of Wordpress dashboard which is adapted from the Wordpress site. However, if you prefer the original look of the Wordpress dashboard and just want to change it’s colors, then NiceAdmin is for you. For me it doesn’t really have any difference with the default Wordpress UI. Overall, I give it a 3 out of 5.
Check out the NiceAdmin admin theme for Wordpress.
(4 votes, average: 5 out of 5)
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Hello and welcome to JaypeeOnline! My name is Jaypee Habaradas and I'm the author of this blog that talks about the latest blogging news, WordPress theme and plugin reviews, technology, gadgets and tips & tricks.
Fantastic thorough review! I think 3 of 5 is probably about right - I basically just ’skinned’ admin.
I do appreciate the time taken and the reference. Thanks!
Doug
I had it with changing admin themes. I did a hack though, I inserted a new section for my blogroll feed underneath the ‘other wordpress news’ section.
Made reading my feeds a lot easier.
@Douglas - Thank you! You did a good job with NiceAdmin even though it was just skinning the admin panel. You’re welcome and thanks for dropping by.
@jhay - It’s the opposite for me. As long as Wordpress doesn’t change the design and layout of the admin panel, I’m gonna keep using Tiger Admin or Spotmilk.
That’s a cool hack! Maybe you can share it with us.
Hmmm. This looks good. But I think I still find Spotmilk’s look nicer. But good to know we have another option! Thanks!
@Joni - Me too. I’m keeping Spotmilk until something cooler or prettier comes out. Hehe
I think the hardest thing I have ever encountered during my ‘hosting days’ was to update a nice look on my Dashboard. In wp.com, it pretty much looks the same but I don’t know which version they are using now. Except of course, the difference from the hosted dashboard vs wp.com dashboard is the plugin management page. I can see you have the player plugin, how come I don’t see you playing some music around here? I forgot, this is a tech-blog.
@K - I’m sure WP.com always uses the latest version of Wordpress. Yeah, there’s no plugin section in WP.com coz the features are limited and you have to buy credits to add stuff to your blog. I use the player plugin to embed audio files when needed.
i’m voting for spotmilk and tiger as well. but kudos to the efforts of the author. how i wish i also have something to contribute to the World of Wordpress.
@ash - I knew you’d say that..hehe Yeah, Douglas did a good job with NiceAdmin and for providing another option for Wordpress users. How about coming up with your own Wordpress theme?
exactly. I wanted to create a theme long before. just got no time for it. let’s see now that I have a pc at home.
Oh, I almost forgot. I’ve been part of some bug fixes of Duh Gallery. *I know it’s not that cool gallery.
@aldrin - Me too, I’ve been wanting to create a public WP theme but I don’t have that much time to do it. Maybe you can do it during weekends.
I think that can be considered as a contribution since it’s a plugin for Wordpress.
What happened? Maybe I no longer remember what WP admin looked like without blackmilk. haha
@benj - What happened to what? Hehe..Blackmilk is really nice isn’t it?
what i meant was what changed? hehe If there were changes, they were negligible. I hate the way the headlines used to tombstone their way in the default setting.
Yellow tombstones?! Ugh. No thank you.
@benj - Oh okay, now I get it. NiceAdmin just changes the color but not the layout. Nonetheless, it’s another option from the default Wordpress setting.