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QUESTION Replacing Admin Panel Structure?
#1
Yo, guys! I have another interesting question; via a plugin, is it possible to replace the admin panel's HTML structure with... say, something custom? I'm unsure how to go about creating an entirely new look for the admin panel.

It'd be a little more challenging than it's worth to try and fit the new design over the top of the current's existing structure, so I was curious if anyone had ideas here.

Basically, I need to be able to change the backend theme more than just simple CSS choices.
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#2
Nope, you could copy all the admin/template files and make your own... But I wouldn't bother so close to a new release.
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- Shawn A aka Tablatronix
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#3
Well, alright. It's not pressing, so I guess for now I can focus on building base functionality. Say, though, when will the next version be released? I'm eager to hack the hell out of it for my plans. <3
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#4
What are your plans ?
There have been some fairly decent css only attempts in the forums.
NEW: SA Admin Toolbar Plugin | View All My Plugins
- Shawn A aka Tablatronix
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#5
Well, I disliked the default admin theme, so I got ol' Justin Y.'s Modern Admin plugin, which I used for a bit until deciding it just wasn't feeling it.

So, my ultimate plan is to do two things in one fell swoop; allow more advanced users to customize the CMS's HTML/CSS structure thru this plugin, and allow the simpletons to switch between themes I build.

I decided to call it Poseidon because it was meant to be very fluid and all-encompassing, like the ocean. It's ultimate goal is to make the backend as possibly beautiful and self-expressive as it can be.

I leave the front end work to people much more talented than me. Tongue
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#6
Well our templates have a lot of code in them.. They have not been well maintained as templates. Something I plan on addressing with some Minor abstracting in 3.4 and much more in 3.5 maybe even switching to a framework.
NEW: SA Admin Toolbar Plugin | View All My Plugins
- Shawn A aka Tablatronix
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#7
You should fork master on github and go from there, at least your changes could be tracked.
NEW: SA Admin Toolbar Plugin | View All My Plugins
- Shawn A aka Tablatronix
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#8
(2015-04-25, 05:52:55)shawn_a Wrote: You should fork master on github and go from there, at least your changes could be tracked.
Not a bad idea! I'll rework it in my image and see what I come up with. Since you guys are under the GPL license, if I change it enough I'll be alright in making it my own thing.

Though, if I do end up leaving GS, I'll be glad to give you guys help should you ever fall a hand or two short. Big Grin
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#9
Well I was hoping it might be something contributory to gs or at least help me identify what needs to change to make this practical in core. Perhaps even merge able
NEW: SA Admin Toolbar Plugin | View All My Plugins
- Shawn A aka Tablatronix
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#10
(2015-04-25, 10:22:12)shawn_a Wrote: Well I was hoping it might be something contributory to gs or at least help me identify what needs to change to make this practical in core. Perhaps even merge able
Oh, that too, of course. I'm working as we speak.
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#11
If you want to play with 3.4 it has some basic theming colors via admin.xml
And some css hooks in style.php that I was playing with, nothing for he theming you speak of but basic color changing and stuff is easier, more skinning type stuff. No sass or less or anything fancy yet or planned, not a priority for this release.
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- Shawn A aka Tablatronix
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#12
Yeah, I wasn't intending to use Sass or LESS anyway. Too much overhead for what I'm trying to accomplish. Hey, is there a way I can get a hold of you faster/easier, in case I have questions about GS's insides?
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#13
It is also a bit more fluid and allows width settings. But not exactly responsive. At this point I'd rather see the template files updated to a framework, bootstrap etc. and all code abstracted into functions with a custom library for table output, some of which I have worked on but nothing like controller views etc, it's on the ultimate roadmap but maybe 4.0 future
NEW: SA Admin Toolbar Plugin | View All My Plugins
- Shawn A aka Tablatronix
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#14
Um yeah create an issue on GitHub or pm me and let me know what chat software you prefer and whatnot .
NEW: SA Admin Toolbar Plugin | View All My Plugins
- Shawn A aka Tablatronix
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#15
Did you already know of this plugin (admin theme)?

modern-admin
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#16
(2015-04-25, 20:03:16)datiswous Wrote: Did you already know of this plugin (admin theme)?

(2015-04-25, 05:45:51)Splashsky Wrote: Well, I disliked the default admin theme, so I got ol' Justin Y.'s Modern Admin plugin, which I used for a bit until deciding it just wasn't feeling it.
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#17
There is also this
http://get-simple.info/forums/showthread.php?tid=7172
NEW: SA Admin Toolbar Plugin | View All My Plugins
- Shawn A aka Tablatronix
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#18
(2015-04-26, 00:32:58)shawn_a Wrote: There is also this
http://get-simple.info/forums/showthread.php?tid=7172
Oh, sweet! That is, in general, what I was after. Now, however, I'm interested in upgrading the templating for the admin panel. I'm building a class to handle parsing on both (con)textual and i18n levels. I needed to start by doing something that the plugins could modify.
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#19
I would start with a feature branch of of master, master is 3.4 dev and it has new hooks on all pages.

for example
edit.php calls
exec_action('load-edit');
immediate after the cookie check before anything happens, and this goes for all other pages.

I have also added some draft hooks for buffer wrapping or whatever in footer.php
if you wanted to buffer all pages and modify them before outputting to browser, however this might not be the best idea since this could change alot, but I have had success doing a dom import on the html and modifying using xpath and then outputting it, of course you could also do some regex hacking instead.

PHP Code:
<?php exec_action('footer-body-end'); // @hook footer-body-end before html body closing ?> 
</body>
</html>
<?php exec_action('footer-end'); // @hook footer-end the end before php flushes its output  ?>

If you want to do this for 3.3.x is is a bit harder without modifying core files.
As there are no early hooks until header is called, if you wanted to replace an entire page etc.

of course you could probably accomplish alot with just jquery, rearrange dom, add classes etc.
But if you find stuff that is hard to select for let me know i can update it in core, there are a few things i noticed that are not target-able for lack of classes or ids.

I don't know if you plan on UI only, or functionality also.
At some point it is going to be wise to rewrite core entirely, as everything has been slowly patched into it, ajax saves for example do not use a common implementation, but I have made some minor adjustments to some stuff to try to make it easier to implement, for example submit_line submit inputs are automatically added to sidebar now on all pages with a submit form matching that. I have also added labels and label buttons and fixed up our form wrappers leftopt and leftsec. But its still a mess of bandaids on 3+ year old code.
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- Shawn A aka Tablatronix
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