Admin Skin

FREE!

The WordPress admin, with the edges taken off.

Dark mode, a grouped sidebar you can rearrange per role, a login screen that matches, and a per-user accent — across every screen, including the ones other plugins add.

Admin Skin restyles the real wp-admin rather than replacing it. There is no separate admin app to learn and nothing to keep in step: every screen — WordPress's own, UnysonPlus's, WooCommerce's, any plugin's — is drawn through the same set of design tokens, so they all change together.

That distinction matters more than it sounds. A plugin that replaces the admin has to support each screen one at a time, and anything it has not got to yet looks broken. Because this one only changes how wp-admin is painted, a plugin released tomorrow is already skinned.

It is active by default on a new install. If you would rather have stock WordPress back, there are two ways out and the extension tells you about both the first time it appears:

• Just for you — the Appearance control in the top bar has a Use classic wp-admin link, and the same switch is on your profile page. Everyone else keeps the skin.
• For the whole site — deactivate it in Unyson+ → Extensions.

Light, dark and system

Pick a mode from the Appearance control in the top bar (the palette icon):

• Light and Dark are exactly that.
• System follows the operating system, so the admin turns dark in the evening along with everything else on your machine.

The choice is per user — yours does not change what your client sees. The site-wide default lives in the extension's settings, and you can turn per-user choice off entirely there if you would rather everyone saw the same thing.

:::note Some panels stay light on purpose In dark mode a few panels keep a light surface: the classic editor's writing area, the Box Style and Table Style pickers, and the Box Shadow preview. Those are not chrome — they are previews of your front end, and your front end is a light surface. Darkening them would show you a shadow, a border or a text colour that is not what a visitor gets. The controls around a preview follow the skin; the preview itself does not.

The editor canvas has an opt-in (Dark editor canvas) if you want it anyway. :::

Accent colour

The accent is the one colour the admin uses for anything active — buttons, links, the current menu item, focus rings. Choose from the swatches in the Appearance control, or pick any colour.

Like the mode, it is per user by default, with a site-wide default in the settings. The skin works out its own hover shade and a readable text colour to sit on it, so a dark accent gets white text and a light one gets dark text without you having to think about it.

Density

Comfortable or Compact, from the same Appearance control. Compact steps down the type size, control heights, table rows and the sidebar width — it is the same skin, tightened, not a different one. It earns its keep on long list tables, where it fits noticeably more rows on screen.

The sidebar

The menu is grouped — Workspace, Shop, Tools, Manage, Plugins — instead of one long list, with a search box at the top. Start typing and the list filters as you go, which is usually faster than hunting for a plugin whose menu name you half-remember.

Plugins the skin has never heard of land in Plugins and keep working normally.

Editing the menu

Unyson+ → Admin Skin → Admin Menu lets you change all of it, per role:

• Move an item to another group with the dropdown beside it.
• Reorder by dragging the handle.
• Hide what a role does not need.
• Rename the groups themselves.

Each role keeps its own layout, which is what makes this useful on a client site: they sign in to Pages, Posts and Media, and you keep the full menu.

:::warning Hiding is not access control A hidden item is removed from the menu, and its top-level URL redirects to the dashboard — but someone who still holds the capability can reach a subpage by typing its address. Use roles and capabilities to control what a person may do; use this to control what they see. :::

One thing the screen will not let you do is hide Unyson+ for a role that can edit this layout — that menu is how you get back here.

Notices

WordPress puts every plugin's notices at the top of every screen. The skin collects them into a single line — "3 notices" — that expands when you want them.

Any notice can be muted, and it stays muted: the same nag does not come back on the next page load. A footer shows how many are hidden and gives them back if you muted something you shouldn't have. Muting is per user, and a notice whose wording changes counts as a new one and will appear again — deliberately, since that usually means it is saying something new.

The login screen

wp-login.php is skinned too, so signing in looks like the admin it leads to rather than stock WordPress. It uses the site's default mode and accent — there is no logged-in user yet to have a preference — and the mark above the form becomes your site icon, or your site name if you have not set one, linking to your home page.

Turn it off with Skin the login screen in the settings if you would rather keep the standard screen.

Command palette

WordPress's own command palette (Ctrl + K, or ⌘ + K on a Mac) gains UnysonPlus entries: Theme Settings, Extensions, the Admin Skin settings, and two that act rather than navigate — toggle light/dark, and toggle density.

Settings

Unyson+ → Admin Skin, or the Settings link on its card in Unyson+ → Extensions — both open the same screen.

Setting	What it does
Active skin	The site-wide skin. Bundled skins ship with the extension.
Default mode	Light, dark or system — what a user sees until they choose.
Density	Comfortable or compact, as the site default.
Accent colour	Overrides the skin's accent for everyone. Empty keeps the skin's own.
Let users choose	Off means everyone gets the site defaults, with no per-user override.
Group the sidebar	Turn the grouping off for a plain list.
Sidebar search	The filter box at the top of the menu.
Collect notices	The notice tray. Off puts notices back at the top of the page.
Skin the block editor chrome	Applies the skin to the editor's own chrome.
Account menu	Where the avatar and its menu sit: sidebar, top bar, or both.
Skin the Customizer	The Customizer's control pane. The preview beside it is never touched.
Skin the login screen	wp-login.php.
Dark editor canvas	Opt-in: tint the classic editor's writing area in dark mode. See the note above.
Hide Appearance → Design / Fonts	Screens that only do anything on a block theme. Auto hides them while a classic theme is active and brings them back by themselves on a block theme.
Keep the WordPress logo	The W menu in the top bar.

Good to know

• Nothing is rewritten. Deactivate the extension and wp-admin is exactly as it was — no leftovers, no settings to unpick.
• Your WordPress colour scheme is untouched. While the skin is on it uses its own, and your original choice comes back the moment you turn it off.
• Keyboard and screen readers work as before, because the markup is WordPress's own. The skin changes colour, spacing and layout, not structure.