Anyone with a WordPress blog knows that when you’re in the administrative area you have that one basic color, that color being gray. With one of my administrative tips, I showed you how you can go into the Users area and change the color to blue if you prefer.
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For someone like me, that’s still pretty boring. I like changing things up a bit more than that, and don’t always like having to stick to the colors a program is offering me. I’ve shown you what I did to some of the websites I visit with Stylish and Firefox in the past.
I decided to search for something that would allow me to make changes to the colors, and I came across a plugin called Easy Admin Color Schemes. It was highly rated by many other users, and it seemed to be the way to go.
Once you load it, you go into the settings of the plugin through your plugin area and it comes up with a menu with lots of different things you can do. There are 4 initial choices at the top, and I decided to go with the last one, which is kind of red. The picture you see above is a screen print of what my Admin area looks like now. This works for me, but of course I did have to experiment some before coming back to it.
You’ll see you have two choices for other color alterations you can do. You can create your own, which is what I did to play around some, or you can import other color schemes. The thing about a scheme is that all the colors will be somewhat similar, which isn’t a bad thing, based on what I went with. However, you might want to diversify things a bit, and if that’s what you want then creating your own scheme makes sense. I’ll probably end up doing that one of these days.
I’m not sure if you notice it from the picture, but I love how it’s highlighting all the different areas better than either the gray or blue were doing. Being able to see everything easier works for me. Colorizing things makes it fun as well. I’m such a big kid. 🙂
Hi Mitch
You know how I am with anything that is even slightly techie lol I’ll stick to the grey as it means I don’t have to configure anything. Heh that was getting a bit techie….configure wow. Doesn’t mean I’m going to start upgrading my plugins or doing anything in my back office other than check my stats (too often!) and my comments from my visitors. Leave the other stuff to you guys who know what you are doing. And I’m sure it all looks very nice too 🙂
Patricia Perth Australia
Pat, the easy part is to just add the plugin, go to its settings, and then select one of the 4 already configured colors to change things up a bit. Even their blue is bluer than the blue that comes with WordPress, and their grey… well, I didn’t test that one, as it still looked a bit boring. But you see my image here; I love that.
Mitch,
I started looking into plug-ins after you talked about CommentLuv a few posts back. I’m no more techie than Patricia, but it seems that WordPress.com doesn’t let you use plug-ins. (Although I could very well be mistaken, and even less techie than Patricia.) Any idea?
You’re right Charles, they only let you use plugins if you pay for it.
It’s nice to change the wp-admin color scheme for clients too. It adds an extra touch to their website which they appreciate, not to mention the default color scheme gets kinda boring.
Keith, I’ve never really thought much about that, but it’s something I should keep in mind the next time I set someone up.
Yeah, I wondered why they only gave you two boring and mundane choices. I’ve gone back and forth between the blue and the gray – would be nice to have something that pops out at me a little more. Thanks for the recommendation on a plug in that will do that!
No problem, Susan. I think you’ll like a couple of the choices, and changing a few things here and there is kind of fun as well. I decided to change things up even more on my other blogs and let’s just say that they’re certainly not boring anymore. 🙂
Thanks for the plug-in recommendation, Mitch. Will look into this one. Makes great change from the usual blues of my life. 🙂
– Wes –
I hope it works well for you, Wes; I’m enjoying what I see.
Thanks for sharing this Mitch, I tried it on one of my new sites and it does make the thing look fresher I suppose.
Regards
Pete
No problem Pete; I love this thing, and I’m glad I got bored. 🙂
I think thats one of the main reason WP is so popular with web developers and bloggers. It is very easy and very flexible. I think even my 1 year old son can handle with interface.
That is so cool! Thanks for the tip!
You like things dynamic from what I can see!
I also know that there was a plugin which changed the way wp admin panel salutes you: From Howdy Mitch! to other funny phrases.
Also there was an other plugin that added a quotes box in your admin panel that changed every so often.
I don’t know if the plugins were updated for wp 3.0, but if you like to customize your wp admin even further you can try to look for them.
That’s okay Alex. I’ve been on blogs with that Hello Dolly thing popping up and I find that kind of distracting. The colors will suffice. 🙂
Another useful recommedation from you, Mitch.
I will definitely try it, thanks.
Good luck to you with it, Kimi.
I suppose the plus it that as it’s to do with the admin area it’s not going to slow the blog down any, but on the negative side……damn, there doesn’t seem to be a negative side. 😀
And there you go. I love the colors and playing with them on my other blogs I must admit.
Nice find Mitch, I didn’t realize anyone made WordPress Plugins to change up the admin. Game time.
John, I think there’s more than one, but this one seems to work the best and was the highest rated, and I’m enjoying it immensely.