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manifest / admin / swish-admin

Swish Admin

A modern reimagining of the WordPress admin UI based on the TailAdmin dashboard design — all native functionality preserved

by Denis Chweya · github.com/denischweya/swish-admin · website

★ 1stars

Install

Download source zip No release zip yet

This is the repository archive. It installs, but the folder name will carry the branch suffix and updates will not flow.

Install straight from GitHub with WP-CLI:

wp plugin install https://github.com/denischweya/swish-admin/archive/refs/heads/main.zip
No built-in updater. New versions won't appear under Dashboard → Updates. Install new releases yourself, or let Git Updater track the repository.
Readme github.com/denischweya/swish-admin ↗

A modern reimagining of the WordPress admin UI, built on the design system of TailAdmin (free Tailwind CSS dashboard template).

All native WordPress functionality is preserved — Swish Admin only changes the UI/UX. Every menu registered by core or by any plugin remains reachable: the sidebar is built live from the real $menu / $submenu globals, and core screens are restyled in place rather than replaced.

Features

  • TailAdmin-style sidebar replacing the classic admin menu — including plugin menus, update/comment count badges, dashicons and custom plugin icons, and collapsible submenus.
  • Modern top bar replacing the admin toolbar: menu search (⌘K / Ctrl+K), dark-mode toggle, view-site link, a "+ New" quick-create dropdown, and a user menu with avatar.
  • Dark mode, persisted per browser via localStorage.
  • Restyled core screens: list tables become cards, buttons, form fields, notices, postboxes, dashboard widgets, nav tabs, pagination and the footer all follow the TailAdmin design tokens.
  • Responsive: off-canvas sidebar with overlay below 1024px.
  • Multisite aware: works in the network admin, with quick switching between network and site admin in the sidebar footer.

Implementation notes

TailAdmin's design system (its exact color/typography/shadow tokens and component styling) was ported to dependency-free CSS custom properties instead of shipping the template's Tailwind/webpack build. Tailwind's preflight reset would break core admin styles; this approach reskins wp-admin safely with zero build step and zero JS dependencies.

Escape hatches

  • Append ?swish-admin=off to any admin URL to view that screen with the native UI.
  • The swish_admin_enabled filter can disable the reskin programmatically.
  • The Customizer keeps its own UI.

Requirements

  • WordPress 6.5+ (tested on 7.0)
  • PHP 7.4+

Credits

License

GPL-2.0-or-later