Admin Themes?

No, I don’t believe that’s possible at all without hacking the admin code. However, you could use something WP-dash for a different look and feel.

I’d say it’s a “nobody-really-cares” territory ??
There were earlier (= for earlier WP versions) several attempts to modify/style the admin interface, but being the backend nobody seems to put much time and/or energy to make it happen. Don’t forget, most bloggers don’t let anybody else inside, so my guess is – the admin interface will stay as it is.

I see that, and I understand that. However, I guess I don’t understand the point of having the “require users to register to add comments” if you don’t want normal people who register to have a consistent look.

It goes to a bunch of places. For example, if I’m a registered “subscriber” I get a link that says “site admin”. Is that what we want? When I log in, I’m take to the “dashboard” which is really a whole bunch of “how the sausage is made” stuff.

My blog (in the oven, still) is a professional thing. Business stuff, heavy topics. I was going to require registration to prevent clowns. I guess I could back off on that thought…

The thing is, WP is SOOO good, and SOOO close to a really perfect CMS, this is about the only thing I’ve found where I’d want to hack the code. (Mind you, I’m quite capable of that, and I’m all over that, if I have to, I was just hoping I didn’t have to… (worrying about updates and all…)).

WP is still not a CMS, and I am not sure it is intended to be. Though I have tweaked it to be used like one.
As for the comments: I use two plugins and set it to be moderated, so I can prevent “clowns” ??

Maybe you’re right. I guess moderation works, but I was hoping to use the login system for other features later…

You see, I (like a growing number of others) see WP as just one heck of a system, far more than just blogging stuff. And I just don’t like the little holes ??

Thx.

I would sure like to rework the admin interface.

For use in magazine style blogging where there are many writers, it would help to have the ability to retool the back end so that made more sense to people who are immediately overwhelmed by WordPress.

For client installations where they can’t seem to leave anything alone, and mess with stuff they shouldn’t be messing with. It would be wonderful to have only the admin (level 10 user) see the actual interface, and any other lever only see the post and manage pages.

For expanded use, where membership is required for commenting, if you again be nice to assign a certain amount of privacy in the back end for only admin and higher level users.

I don’t think that the back end is something which should be accepted as done. And it would be wonderful to know more about how to modfy it.

“However, I guess I don’t understand the point of having the “require users to register to add comments” if you don’t want normal people who register to have a consistent look.”

You’re right – that’s why I don’t require users to register in order to add comments, I use anti-spam plugins. Two at a time, in fact: SpamKarma2 and Akismet.

———

“I don’t think that the back end is something which should be accepted as done. And it would be wonderful to know more about how to modfy it.”

There are plenty of ways that you can have multiple authors on a blog who can’t touch anything but posts/pages. One of which is to assign them a “role” – I prefer to use the plugin for that, since it allows specific areas where people can or can’t go (let’s say you want author “A” to have access to links, but authors “B” and “C” can’t)

https://redalt.com/wiki/Role+Manager

Yes, these are all good points.

/* selfish rant */

However, under certain circumstances which only begin with comment spam, and extend into authors, suitability of content, the concept of membership, community, and more make a good case for modification of registered user level 0 having no access of any kind to the back end.

It would be a nice, forward looking, beyond the blog solution making WordPress even more useful in many more situations.

/* end selfish rant */

Thanks for the plugin link, very helpful!

: )

Just write a plugin to style your admin interface. A short introduction is here.

You can use DOM methods to show/not show elements of the interface depending on user level or whatever you want.

Alrighty then. I’ll go down this path and see how far I get. Thanks for the pointers everyone.

If I can, I’d like to give my +1 to the dev folks for a little more thought into the whole concept that “register” and/or “login” are powerful features, which go well beyond getting into the bowels of my blog. Think about things like joining sites for access to some content, for example. It would be really nice to more fully support average janes/joes having a clean interface in that part of the WP world.

Thanks.