Design - Written by Kerry on Saturday, May 10, 2008 10:31 - 34 Comments
‘Branded Admin’ Plugin
NEW VERSION AVAILABLE HERE >>>
Finally the Branded Admin Plugin has arrived. This plugin allows for the application of custom header and footer graphics to the WordPress Admin Section. It also removes WordPress links to better distinguish the site as a custom work and reinforce the sites branding. I have provided screenshots below of the before and after Admin Dashboard page from my site. I designed two images to create the branding effect I needed. One in the header, reinforcing the header logo from the content side of my site and an icon logo in the footer. Nothing fancy but it carries the logo to the Admin pages very well.
Looking for the ‘Branded Login Screen’ Plugin >>>
Download Link
Download Latest Version 0.1
zip, 14.9k – 2437 downloads
Check out the screenshots below:
click either image for a lightbox view
Instructions
The images can be found in the plugins images folder. They are named ‘branded-header.png’ & ‘branded-footer.png’. If you use the same names for your images you will not need to edit any of the plugins files. If you have images ready to use and named differently, here is what you have to change:
1) ‘branded-admin.php’ file line 21
echo '<a href="' . get_settings('siteurl') . '" title="Click to View Site"> <img src="' . get_settings('siteurl') . '/wp-content/plugins/branded-admin/images/branded-header.png" /></a> </div>';
2) ‘branded-admin.css’ file line 115
#footer_branded {
clear: both;
width: 100%;
margin-top: -70px;
height: 70px;
vertical-align: middle;
color:#fff;
background: url(images/branded-footer.png) #464646 no-repeat 20px 10px;
color: #999;
}
Even though the location of the images may look different in these two files they are both in the images folder of the plugin. So edit the two locations with the names of your images and upload to the plugins images folder:
‘
/wp-content/plugins/branded-admin/images’
Be sure to notice in the screenshots the header and the footer. Mine are pretty simplistic, minor changes. You can do what ever you want here. My header image is 500×61 and my footer icon is 40×40. I believe you can go as large as you like (within constraints of the admin layout) so be creative.
As always if you have questions or concerns please leave a reply.
Download Link
Download Latest Version 0.1
zip, 14.9k – 2437 downloads
34 Comments
Looks great Kerry, I can’t wait to try it out on my own blog.
@Mike – You’re becoming a regular around here. Thanks for the kind words. It is rather basic right now. I hope to add an Admin interface to upload images for the header & footer graphics as well as the ability to change the Admin css to brand the Admin color.
The plugin seems kinda simple, but i like that i can change the header and footer if i want to.
Thanks and regards.
Very cool indeed. Was planning on manually doing this as a lil side-project next weekend, but now, thanks to you, I can spend more time this weekend off the laptop!
Great plugin but it does not seem to work very well with “Fluency Admin” from Kerry Webster. Any workaround in order to make these two plugins work together?
David
I’ve been doing “this” manually for the last several versions of WordPress, and every time they come out with a new Admin, I had to re-do my custom headers and footer.
Now this plugin should carry my changes from version to version.
One question is whether this plugin would be compatible with other Admin theme plugins?
@David – My idea with this was to aid those that did not want to ‘theme’ the admin section so I never tested it with an admin theme installed. I use IE mostly and neither Tiger nor Fluency works with them.
@DG – Kind of the same as I replied to David. I have no plans to test with any themed admin plugin. My thoughts were to keep the admin pretty much intact. With plugins available to ‘colorize’ the admin even better themes can be created now in WP 2.5.1 and since most admin themes are not crossbrowser capable I like the idea of keeping it simple.
Cool site man! The plugin works great as advertised; the only thing I might suggest is maybe a little more documentation for the newbs out there……but it’s perfect for us advanced users to save us some time.
I will add a link to this from my blog tomorrow when I’m not half asleep 
@Patrick – Thanks for the comment. I have plans to do what you suggest with better directions/instructions for newer bloggers. Everything is a factor of time. I will try to get an install section written for all my plugins (all 2 of them) very soon though. Thanks again for the input.
Awesome plugin, I use it on a bunch of site, but I have noticed the dashboard floats right in CSS3 capable browsers..
Just giving you the heads up..
@TheFrosty – I have also found it incompatible with my new favorite admin plugin: Ozh’ Admin Drop Down Menu. I will need to do some work on this one. Thanks for the info.
Just dropping by to say I look forward to a new edition of this plugin for WP 2.6+.
I noticed WordPress has ADDED some new stuff in the Admin, and I want to hide this junk. There’s a new yellow stripe. When I am logged in as Admin it says “Upgrade to WP 2.6.1!”
Worse, when I am logged in as a Contributor, it says something mean like “Tell your site owner to Upgrade to WP 2.6.1!”
Please can your plugin also hide this line!
Does it really say that it your logged in at “contributor” I want to check my site, to see it if says that… lol
But I think there is another plugin that hides the “upgrade” bar..
On another note, I’ll be looking forward to the update, was actually looking at ozh’ plugin right now for a client site.. so, good to know.
I’ve been enjoying your plugin for a while, but lately I’ve tried to make a slight modification and seem to mess it up each time. On the custom footer, I would like the link for that to open in a new window. Seems like it should be easy, but I must be changing the wrong line of code each time. Any suggestions?
Thanks again for the great plugin!
“As always if you have questions or concerns please leave a reply.”
What to do if the plugin messes up the top links? Like turbo and the dashboard one.. I am Not that good with code.
This is great! We just adjusted all this stuff on our template…then upgrade came along and wiped it all out ;(
So excited to go put this on.
@Tomb – sorry for the late response. I had a ‘Side Note’ entry a while back explaining this plugin will not work properly with 2.6.x. I am waiting on 2.7 release before I head back in to change the code. Sorry for the issues you are having but for now I would suggest not using the plugin.
@Doug – On the link to the new window code the following:
<a href="your_page.htm" target="_blank" >Your Link</a>
The target="_blank" will cause the link to open in a new browser window.
Hope this helps.
May 11, 2008
09:57 am