Customizing the WordPress Admin_ The Login Screen - Tuts+ Code Article

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This post is part of a series called Customizing the WordPress Admin.

Customizing the WordPress Admin - The Dashboard

CREATIVE CODING

by Rachel McCollin 18 Sep 2013 22 Comments

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Customizing the WordPress Admin: The Login Screen - Tuts+ Code Ar... http://code.tutsplus.com/articles/customizing-the-wordpress-admin-the...

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The WordPress login screen is well designed - it's clean and simple to interact with

and it works well on all screen sizes. But what if you're building a site for a client who

wants to display their own logo to users logging in? Or if you have a MultiSite

installation and want your users to see your branding when they log in? Luckily, you

can customise the way the login screen looks quite easily.

For this tutorial I've created a plugin to do this; the advantage of using a plugin is

that you can drop it into any WordPress sites you develop and instantly give them

some branding.

The steps I'm going to demonstrate in this tutorial are:

Adding a custom logo1.

Styling the login screen - the logo, links and buttons2.

What You Will Need to Complete This Tutorial

To complete this tutorial you will need:

A WordPress installation

Access to your site's plugins folder to add your plugin

A text editor to create your plugin.

Setting Up the Plugin

At the top of my plugin I'm adding the following lines:

1. Add a Custom Logo

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/*

Plugin Name: WPTutsPlus Customize the Admin Part 1 - Login Screen

Plugin URI: http://rachelmccollin.co.uk

Description: This plugin supports the tutorial in wptutsplus. It customizes the Wor

Version: 1.0

Author: Rachel McCollin

Author URI: http://rachelmccollin.com

License: GPLv2

*/


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It's easy to add your own or your client's logo to the login page and instantly make

your WordPress installation look more professional.

First, create a folder called media inside your plugin folder, and upload your

logo to it.

1.

In the plugin file (or functions file), add the following function, attaching it to the

login_enqueue_scripts action hook:

2.

This will add your logo to the login screen, as shown the the screenshot.

2. Style the Login Screen

As well as adding a logo you can also resize it to fit and add styling for other

elements in the screen.

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// add a new logo to the login page

function wptutsplus_login_logo() { ?>

.login #login h1 a {

background-image: url(

Styling the Logo

The logo above is slightly squashed in order to fit in the default space given for it. I'm

going to adjust the sizing.

Edit the code in your plugin so it reads as follows:

The height value you use will depend on the aspect ratio of your logo. Using 300px

and auto for the background-size property ensures that your logo is as wide as

the login box and that its aspect ratio is retained, and the height value will provide

enough space for your logo to fit in.

Now my logo looks like this:

Much better! But sizing the logo isn't the only thing I can do with regard to styling.

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How about changing some colors?

Styling Links

All of the text displayed on the login page is in the form of links, so it's links you'll

have to style. Edit your code again so it reads as follows:

This gives me links which are in keeping with my logo colors. The link color is cyan

and the hover color is magenta.

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Note: As my logo's main color is similar to blue, it works well for links. You may not

want to change the color of your links if your logo is a very different color, to avoid

usability problems.

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Styling the Button

The final element on the screen is the 'Log In' button, which is still blue. Let's change

that. Edit your code so it reads as follows:

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So I now have a completely customized login screen, meaning that when my clients

or users log in, they see something that's consistent with my brand and makes the

site look more professional.

Summary

Customizing the WordPress login screen is straightforward and can make a big

difference to the impression your site gives to users and clients logging in. By

tweaking the code above to meet your needs and reflect your brand you can create

a very professional login screen in very little time.

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background: -webkit-linear-gradient(top, #85aaaa 0%,#208e8c 100%);

background: -o-linear-gradient(top, #85aaaa 0%,#208e8c 100%);

background: -ms-linear-gradient(top, #85aaaa 0%,#208e8c 100%);

background: linear-gradient(to bottom, #85aaaa 0%,#208e8c 100%);

}

Categories:

Creative Coding

WordPress

Translations Available:

Tuts+ tutorials are translated by our community

members. If you'd like to translate this post into


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22 Comments

Randy Federighi

Also don't forget, the logo url points to Wordpress but it can be changed using the

'login_headerurl' filter very easily.

Austin Passy

Or you can use a simple WordPress login plugin like my Custom Login plugin in the

repo or the premium version Custom Login Pro on Extendd.com.

So much more simple. :)

Ananya Sharma

Wow...I just moved over from Blogger to Wordpress on this http://sscdesk.in

Little naive for the php and wordpress, but with your codes I think I can manage and

make it look gud...thanks, gud share

GTUExam.in

I know it's extremely useful to know how to do this and that using

plugins is not the best solution all the time, but I wanted to mention

our White Label CMS plugin does all this and more. It redirects /login

to /wp-login.php, allows you to rebrand the login page, clean up and

rebrand the dashboard as well as give "Editors" access to "menus" and

"widgets" and a whole lot more.

http://www.gtuexam.co.in/

Rohit Jain

Will implement this on my blog. http://www.aamindia.com/

Nikhil

nice work i would be doing this for my new client....!!

http://goresult.in

Share King

wow great tutorial !!


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Customizing the WordPress Admin_ The Login Screen - Tuts+ Code Article

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