True theming does not as yet exist in Textpattern, at least in the sense of “skins” that other CMS use. The main reason for this is that the core code would require a lot of changes to the markup and CSS – basically, its a big project and backwards compatibility would be necessary.
However, thanks to a couple of recent plugins, help is at hand if you want to change how your Admin looks, especially if you are branding a site for a client.
Introducing dds_admin_style
David DeSandro is a very talented designer who has developed some designs for the Textpattern Admin (also for the Textpattern forum). To make it easier to switch between the designs from the Admin, users can install his plugin – dds_admin_style.
- Install the dds_admin_style plugin
- Activate the plugin
Choose your style
Visit David’s Admin Themes demo page and try the various styles, then download one of them. Once downloaded, create a new style under the Style tab and name it something like admin_simplexmild. Replace simplexmild with the name of the style sheet you downloaded.
Then, visit your Extensions > Admin Themes, choose your preferred Admin style and save.
Note that you will have to create your own favicon.ico file and upload it to the /textpattern folder.
Further information may be found on David’s Textpattern Admin Themes page.
Another Admin plugin – aro_myadmin
The aro_myadmin plugin (forum thread) offers users a modified Admin interface which is worth a good look, but note the plugin is not being currently developed.
Take it further
Until Textpattern offers true theme support, dds_admin_style is the next best thing. With this plugin, its also possible to make your own Admin styles.
Jonathan, thanks for recommending my themes and plugin!
Eventually, I might write up an article to help anyone who wants wo play with textpattern.css.
@David – its the least I could do – your work is so impressive, as is your site re-design (the best I have seen in a long while). Thanks for your efforts!
To be honest, I don’t think its worth playing around with textpattern.css – what’s the point, when the upsides are limited and any future TXP updates will overwrite the file…
You do have a point. For those of us ingrained in the Txp community, keeping up with the latest CSS can be tedious. But, I think the biggest need is when designers want to design a back-end for their clients — like Kevin Potts advocates, for example
If they are not web savvy, telling them “log-in to Textpattern” doesn’t really mean anything. But you can change the branding to say “ABC Company Web Posts” and it could make better sense.
Very awesome plugin ! Thanks David !
Actually I use the Kevin Potts stuff for branding the txp admin interface for clients.
It’s interesting to show in the interface admin the logo (or name) of the site. Especially when we switch from one site to an other.
Bad with the graphicpush stuff : it need to replace the txplib_head.php file each time the file is upgraded.
It would be fine to see here a tutorial : how modify the textpattern.css to insert (like Kevin Potts) an image (300 × 40px) with the client logo and other text. So, David plugin begin to be perfect ! Note : tutorial must be IE compatible. In some themes from David, the branding works only in FF (td:first-child:before …).