Have you ever wanted to customize the administrative area within a WordPress installation? Maybe you want to change some of the terms used within the menus (such as changing the word “Posts” to “Articles” or something). Maybe you want to change the color scheme. Maybe you want to add some custom help text or a new box to the Dashboard.
At WordCamp Mid-Atlantic last weekend, Jake Goldman from C. Murray Consulting shared some fantastic tips explaining how to make these changes and more. The best part? He posted most of the tips on his blog, along with a package you can download and play with on your own WordPress.
All you need to do is download the ZIP package in his post. Then, open it up and take a look at the functions.php file included. Find the functions you want to use, copy them and paste them into your own theme’s functions.php file. Then, make sure you extract and upload the necessary files (for instance, if you want to add your own company’s logo to the login screen or the header area of the admin center, you would need to upload and customize the admin_styles.css file in the package, then upload your own logo images).
There are some amazing tips in that package. Make sure you check it out.
Update
Jake commented below that the blog post has moved and been updated with new code. If you are still interested in learning about this process, you can visit Jake’s new blog post.
3 Responses
Thanks for the informative post. Was thinking of customizing my WordPress Admin Area for a long time but never found potential information regarding the same. Thanks for your post I got a much clear idea about the whole stuff.
Looking forward for some great posts from your end. Cheers!!! ;)
Thought you might like to know that a newer version of the code is available at my new website (no longer working at the aforementioned company) here:
http://www.get10up.com/blog/2011/03/customizing-wordpress-admin/
Thanks, Jake. I’ve updated the blog post with the new link.