As a continuation of the work begun in core for 3.6, I’d like to present you with the first iteration of the MP6 plugin. (Contents may have shifted or settled in shipping.) As it says on the tin, this is not intended for the general public, just for savvy WordPress enthusiasts eager to preview or contribute to a re-imagination of our collective home, wp-admin.

From the base of what was in trunk 3.6 last week, here’s what’s new:

  • A visual treatment for the toolbar and menubar that visually unifies the two and reduces clutter.
  • Flatter visual styling, with square corners, for tables and grouping elements like .postbox.
  • Increased saturation of the traditional WP blue (old vs new comparison: http://cl.ly/image/1X2G3X1Y0y2g ).
  • A splash of color to denote the current menu item. (gasp)
  • Removed the burnt orange hover state in favor of a lighter blue.
  • Single-color icons are now served via an icon font, making them load instantly and look crisp at any zoom factor. (The speed is noticeable on slower connections, like Gogo.) We can also use these for mobile apps.
  • Consistent typography for all operating systems by including the Open Sans web font. (Cognizant of complications embedding this could entail.)
  • Added padding between links in the menu for easier touch navigation, important as the majority of internet interaction will happen on touch devices within a few years.
  • Lightened the page background using white backgrounds for grouping elements and a gray background for the body.
  • Removed the large header icons for a cleaner look at the top of the page. Reduce, reuse, recycle.

“Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.” — Antoine de Saint-Exupery

This week included contributions from MT, Joen, Ben, and Otto.

It’s worth noting that we don’t anticipate to support an alternative admin style (blue) like the current admin does, but the simpler visual language and icon font makes it infinitely more flexible for people to customize the color scheme of their admin.

There will be office hours on Monday with MT to discuss next week’s iteration, and then version 0.3 will come out March 15th. Come by with ideas, ruminations, rants, soliloquies, haiku, hex codes, complaints, beard grooming tips, and bike sheds. We plan to continue doing weekly iterations, to try at least one new thing per week, until it’s ready for core. The only constant is change. :)