29 May 2008 One Comment Email This Post

I will be writing in the near future about Wordpress plugins that I have been using at Metro-East.com. This morning, however, I want to write about a new plugin that I have just installed. (*Shocking/interesting note: I just counted and I have 57 plugins installed at Metro-East.com and 30 of those are currently active. I’d say I have some material for future posts.)

Pressing Pixels has a list of plugins useful for turning Wordpress into a CMS.

They have one plugin in particular that I am about to try out. It is their own creation, Custom Admin Branding. This modification is not about functionality but rather presentation. Basically the plugin will allow you to remove any generic Wordpress branding from your interface and replace it with more visually appealing and personalized custom branding. (If we’re going to be turning Wordpress into a CMS, anything that makes it less “Wordpressy” is worth looking into.)

(15 minutes later…) Success!

I am not a Photoshop pro so it took me a little while to create new images, but if you follow the instructions for the plugin it turns out to be quite simple to customize your branding. All that is required is to install the plugin in the usual manner and then create new images to replace the default images that are included.

However…

I did run into a little difficulty. At the same time I installed the Custom Admin Branding plugin I came across the Fluency Admin plugin. The Fluency plugin revamps your Wordpress Dashboard and moves all of the menus to the left of the screen.

I learned that Fluency is often combined with the Admin Drop Down Menu plugin as a means of conserving space and increasing efficiency, so I installed it also.

I was impressed! This makes the interface on the Dashboard about one hundred times easier to navigate and on top of that it looks very nice. I think my new bloggers will really appreciate the improvement and simplicity as they learn how to use the Wordpress system.

The difficulty I ran into was compatibility between Custom Admin Branding, Fluency, and Admin Drop Down Menu. The custom header image I created did not want to line up nicely with the new interface and, moreover, it just didn’t really seem to fit with the new sleek look of the Dashboard.

I could have just deactivated Custom Admin Branding, but I really liked the custom Login branding.

This set me on a quest to customize the Login screen without using Custom Admin Branding. I will detail that experience and post a tutorial in the next couple of days.