Admin Style

Admin Style is a Side Kick module that tidies up the WordPress admin area. It has three separate features, and every one of them is switched off when you first activate the module, so nothing changes until you turn a feature on. Admin Style needs Darwin Side Kick installed and active. You can find out more on the Admin Style product page.

Switching features on

1. Make sure the Admin Style module is active. See Dashboard and modules.
2. Open Darwin Side Kick and go to Settings.
3. Choose the Admin style page.
4. Under Features, switch on the features you want.
5. Click Save changes.

Feature	What it does	Default
Admin menu manager	Adds a screen for grouping, reordering, renaming and hiding items in the left-hand admin menu, and adding links of your own.	Off
Collapsible admin menu	Lets people fold away groups of menu items they rarely use.	Off
Group admin notices	Moves admin notices into a panel opened from the admin toolbar.	Off

The Admin menu screen

With the manager on, a new Admin menu screen appears in the Modules part of the Side Kick sidebar. It has two tabs, Config and Design, and one bar of controls along the bottom. Nothing you do here changes the real menu until you click Apply.

If the screen says the menu has not been read yet, reload the page once.

Groups

Each group is one block of the sidebar, with a separator line above it. The first time you open the screen, the groups match where your menu already has separator lines. They start without names.

• Add Group creates a new, empty group. Type a name for it.
• To rename a group, click its name and type. Press Enter or Esc to finish.
• To remove a group, click Remove, then click Confirm within a few seconds. Its items move to Ungrouped. Nothing is deleted.
• Ungrouped holds anything no group claims, such as items from a plugin you installed later. It always stays last, and its items still appear at the end of the menu.
• A group with nothing in it draws no line in the sidebar.

Moving items

Drag an item to a new place, or into another group. You can drag whole groups to reorder them too. If you prefer clicking, use the Move up one place and Move down one place buttons on each row.

Renaming and icons

Type a new label straight into a row, or click the pencil button (Edit this item) to open the item's settings. There you can set the Label, the Icon and where it Goes to, with a Preview drawn at the real sidebar width. Click Save item when done.

For the icon, choose Dashicons (the icon set built into WordPress, with a search box) or Image to pick one from the Media Library. A 20 by 20 pixel PNG or SVG image works best.

Renaming a WordPress item replaces its whole label, including any count bubble, such as the number of comments waiting. If you point a WordPress item somewhere else, its sub-menu no longer appears under it.

Each row carries a tag: Core or Core modified for items WordPress or a plugin added, and Internal or External for links you added. The undo button puts a changed core item back the way WordPress registered it, or removes a link you added. Core items cannot be deleted, only hidden.

Hiding items

Use the switch at the end of a row to hide or show an item. A hidden item is taken off the menu for everyone, but its page still exists and still opens if you go to its web address. So hiding Settings, for example, does not lock anyone out of it.

The Darwin Side Kick item can never be hidden, because the menu is edited from inside Side Kick.

The Show hidden button only changes what this screen shows. It is on to start with, so hidden rows stay visible here.

Adding your own links

1. Click Add item at the bottom of the group you want.
2. Enter a Label.
3. Under Goes to, choose Admin page and search for a screen in your dashboard, or choose Web address and enter a full address starting with http:// or https://. Anything else is refused.
4. Choose an icon. With none, the item gets the standard WordPress gear.
5. Click Save item.

Linking to an admin page adds another way in. It does not move the original. Your links show for anyone who can reach the dashboard, but they do not give anyone extra access.

Auto sort

Auto sort rearranges the whole menu into suggested groups. It keeps your renames, hidden items and links. Groups with nothing in them are left out, and every group can be renamed or changed afterwards. Nothing is saved until you click Apply.

Group	What goes in it
Dashboard	Dashboard and Darwin Side Kick
Library	Media and Users
Content	Pages, Posts and other content types
Appearance	Appearance and Elementor items
Mail	SMTP and mail log plugins
Administration	Plugins, Settings, Tools, your own links and anything not recognised

Preview, Discard, Apply and Reset

• Preview shows the sidebar as it will look once applied. Hidden items are left out.
• Discard throws away everything not yet applied.
• Apply saves the changes on both tabs and reloads the page, so you see the new menu straight away.
• Reset menu takes two clicks: click it, then Confirm. On the Config tab it removes your arrangement, including your own links, and the menu goes back to how WordPress and your plugins build it. On the Design tab the button reads Reset design and only resets the design.

If a plugin is deactivated, its items are left out of the menu and the screen lists them as not registered right now. They return to their place when the plugin is active again, as long as you have not clicked Apply in the meantime. Applying while the plugin is off drops their place and any changes you made to them, and they come back in Ungrouped.

The Design tab

The Design tab controls how the sidebar looks. Changes here also wait for Apply.

Setting	Choices	Default
Colours	Admin scheme (follows each user's own WordPress colour scheme), Dark, Light or Custom	Admin scheme
Custom colours (shown with Custom)	Background, Text and Current (the page you are on). Hover and sub-menu shades are worked out from these.	#1c2b26, #e3ece8, #2fa85e
Long labels	Wrap, Ellipsis or Reveal on hover	Wrap
Density	Compact, Default or Roomy row height	Default
Show icons	On or off. A folded sidebar keeps its icons.	On
Foldable groups	On or off. See below.	Off
Start collapsed (shown with Foldable groups)	On or off	Off
Heading style	Separator only, or Name to write each group's name on its separator	Separator only

Collapsible admin menu

This adds a small arrow button to each separator line in the sidebar. Click it to fold or unfold the group below.

• Folds are remembered by each person's web browser, so everyone keeps their own.
• The group holding the page you are on always stays open.
• If the menu's groups change, remembered folds are cleared and every group opens again.
• With Start collapsed on, someone who has never folded anything starts with every group folded.

Group admin notices

Admin notices are the coloured message boxes plugins and WordPress show at the top of admin screens. With this feature on, a Notices button appears in the admin toolbar along the top of the screen.

• A badge shows how many notices there are, up to 9+. The button changes colour when one of them is an error.
• Click Notices to open the panel over the page. Click it again, or the close button, to shut it. You can dismiss notices inside the panel as usual.
• Only users who can manage site options (normally Administrators) get the button. It does not appear in the multisite network admin.

Some messages deliberately stay where they are:

• WordPress's own error messages after a form fails to save, such as a profile update, so you can see what went wrong.
• Notices placed inside a plugin's own screen content.
• Notices that appear more than a few seconds after the page has loaded.

Good to know

• The menu arrangement and design apply to everyone. There are no separate menus per role or per user. Only folds are personal.
• Hiding is not a security tool. Hidden pages still open by their web address for anyone allowed to use them.
• Admin Style does not restyle the login screen.
• There is no import or export of menu layouts.