Fluency Admin 2.0

The all-new version of Fluency, now compatible with WordPress 2.7

Fluency 2

There is no doubt that the band spanking new admin interface in WordPress 2.7 is a huge leap forward, and so long as you don’t switch to the ‘blue’ version (seriously, worst, blue, ever) its actually pretty nice to look at and use. The navigation is now down the left-hand side, just as I preferred (which is why thats where it was in Fluency 1.x), and because of this, styling and customising the menu in-particular has been a lot simpler that it was in previous versions of WP.

So whats new.

Well, technically, everything is. Fluency 2 was a ground up rewrite due to the fact that just about every part of both the design and underlying structure of the default admin has changed. This was definitely a good thing, as it allowed me to make sure I’m only including what really needs to be included. However I did make this a little hard for myself when I started work using the early trunk builds, which meant that every time I updated my build I had to update Fluency…again. I actually ended up building the Fluency 2 CSS from scratch twice, and what it looks like now isn’t at all what it looked like when I first began playing around.

Ok, so whats “really” new.

Thanks to the addition of some extra hooks customising the style of the login screen is now possible, so that’s new.

I’ve customised the main navigation too, couldn’t help myself. You may have seen me mention that I’m not an enormous fan of the way the navigation functions. WordPress claim it take less clicks to get to different screens, but I don’t really agree. You still have to click a submenu to expand it, and then click the link, that’s two clicks which by my count is the same as before. Sure it require one less page load, but…

Also not a fan of the expanding/contracting width of the menu. I had played with, implemented and then removed pretty much the same thing in an early version of Fluency 2 before I figured it wasn’t worth the effort, and well before it appeared in the WP trunk. In the end I dropped it like a sack of potatoes because I didn’t see the point in adding it for the sake of adding it. After all it was only giving me about 80px of extra page width to play with. When it appear in the trunk I really didn’t like the way that menu behaved completely different whether expanded or contracted, and thought that it would surely be confusing for new users.

Solution. Custom flyout menus. Now virtually everything is just one click away (or a nifty key-combo…). Personally I love my new menus (as you would expect) they take up less room than the default one, and the behaviour has actually reduced the number of clicks. Plus I think they look awesome.

To go with the new menus I’ve added “hot keys” for quick access. Its the first time I’ve attempted such a thing and its turned out alright. As you would expect the hotkeys won’t function if you’re inside an input or textarea so your data entry should be unimpeded. I did however add these prior to the comment moderation hotkeys being added to the trunk so there may be some conflict there. If you find anything please let me know.

Unlike Fluency 1.x I haven’t had to modify the post screens too much beyond some cosmetic touchups. Besides, now that you can drag-and-drop all the panels on these screen so you can put whatever you want where ever you want it. Under the “screen options” menu at the top right of the screen you can also choose to hide some sections completely. This can be done on the dashboard as well as the post and edit screens, its one of the really handy features they’ve included in 2.7.

It should go without saying that the primary purpose of Fluency is to change the styles of your admin, all the other bit are just extra fun. While the overall theme of the design is similar to 1.x it much more refined, smoother and hopefully more consistent. The familiar grey colour-scheme is back, with colour added as needed. Little things like the inline post/comment edit/delete/approve/etc links are styled with appropriate colours, eg. delete = red, approve = green etc. For browsers that support them, ie. everything but IE, I’ve used rgba colours for menu backgrounds to give them a slightly transparent appearance.

Enough words, I should let you gaze across the screenshots below, and most importantly direct you to the download link (top right of this page for those that missed it).

Screenshots









I haven’t covered everything, but those are the main points. If you’ve got any questions just leave a comment.

Quick word about plugins.

Fluency has not been tested with ever plugin under the sun, I’ve test the ones I use, plus a couple of the more popular ones, but in general if a plugin has decent admin screens that follow the rest of the layout then it should be fine to use in conjunction with Fluency. If you come across a plugin that doesn’t, please let me know and I’ll do my best to add support for it in the future.

Note: Since I (once again) rushed this out the door, I’ll try and revisit the content above in the coming days to include some more details.

Leave a Comment on “Fluency Admin 2.0”




153 Responses to “Fluency Admin 2.0”

  1. Hopefully this will be updated officially for 2.8, haven’t tried it yet though. Hope it works!

    Erik Jenkins Friday 26 June 2009
    • The current version (2.0) works fine with WP2.8 with the exception of a few style oddities here and there, but nothing that I’ve seen that makes it unusable. I’ve started an update for WP2.8 and I should be able to get it out in the next week or so.

      dean.j.robinson Friday 26 June 2009
  2. Hi, I have tried installing the plugin on a number of 2.8 sites but get the following error message when I activate the plugin:

    “The plugin does not have a valid header.”

    any ideas?
    thanks pete

    pete Monday 22 June 2009
    • Hmm, not sure what could be causing that I’ve also installed Fluency on several WP2.8 blogs, and I haven’t had any issues at all. Is that all the message tells you? Do you have any other plugins that change the admin interface in any way that could be conflicting with Fluency?

      dean.j.robinson Friday 26 June 2009
      • I got the same message about the header and I think I figured it out. When I downloaded your zip and then used the Wordpress “add new” plugin feature I used the upload option. That created a “wp-fluency-2” folder that contained another “wp-fluency-2” folder and a “MacOSX” folder. So plugin folder structure was wrong. I fixed it by deleting that and just uploading the contents of your plugin directly in ftp.

        And thanks for this. I have been hating the new admin look and your plugin makes it more tolerable.

        Jason Schramm Saturday 27 June 2009
        • ahhhh…. great, thanks for the info.
          I’ll make I test that install method for the next and make sure its compatible.

          dean.j.robinson Saturday 27 June 2009
  3. Phenomenal work and very intuitive layout. Thank you for sharing this - it’s greatly appreciated.

    Soren Friday 19 June 2009
  4. …it… doesn’t work.
    I’m using WP 2.7.

    The footer says I’m using Fluency but there’s no change to the admin.

    Luuk Tuesday 16 June 2009
    • Hi Luuk, what web browser are you using? And are you running any other plugins that change the admin area that may be in conflict with Fluency?

      dean.j.robinson Tuesday 16 June 2009
      • Hi,

        I’m running Firefox 3.0 on Ubuntu 9.04.
        And AFAIK there are no other plugins active…

        Luuk Thursday 18 June 2009
        • update: I’m using WP2.8 now.

          Luuk Thursday 18 June 2009
          • OK, i reinstalled the plugin and now it works!

            …and… it…
            i love it.
            keyboard control, minimal design, OMG u rule.

            Luuk Saturday 20 June 2009
  5. Okay, just updated to WP 2.8 and Fluency seems to work just fine for me. I don’t know about widgets (my blog doesn’t use them).

    …Oh, and thank you for Fluency. It’s beautiful and functional and just makes using WP a joy (more so!). I think I’m more excited about using the interface than I am about blogging now! Very intelligent and powerful. It should be included in WP by default.

    iynque Tuesday 16 June 2009
  6. Any plans to update to 2.8?

    Erick Monday 15 June 2009
  7. wordpress 2.8 is out some changes to the way columns show up etc, haven’t installed fluency yet, will it work?

    robert Friday 12 June 2009
  8. Anyone have this working with the 2.8 release? I’m pretty tech savvy, but new to WordPress, so I don’t want to muck anything up by being an early adopter! :D

    iynque Thursday 11 June 2009
    • I’ve had several user report that the current version of Fluency was working fine with the WP2.8 release candidates (I’ve also had no issues), and I imagine that nothing should have change in the final release that would prevent it from working.

      I do plan to do a minor update in the next couple of weeks so if you do spot anything that seems to be broken (like, possibly the new widgets admin page) please let me know so that I can address them in the update.

      dean.j.robinson Thursday 11 June 2009
      • it seems, that we have some language problems after installing WP 2.8 - Some translated parts (german) got back to english after updating. Maybe nothing that is related to Fluency…?

        Nils Friday 12 June 2009
  9. I tried the plugin on WP 3.0 RC1 and it rocks !!!! Great great grea job ;-)

    Emidio Tuesday 09 June 2009
  10. Love the plugin; makes WP’s admin SO much more intuitive!

    I quickly read through the comments/questions below and did not see anyone else with my problem. In Firefox, all of the submenus are black text on grey background (impossible to read). Screen shot is http://i40.tinypic.com/ibkxdv.jpg . In IE, they show up as black on white which also seems inconsistent compared to other screenshots I’ve seen below. I did disable all other plugins to rule that out, and I don’t think any changes have been made to your code. WordPress 2.7 and 2.7.1, FF 3, IE 8, XP. I’m going to try in MacOS Leopard when I get to work today as well just for more info. Thanks for any suggestions!

    Andrew Sunday 31 May 2009
    • An update I just noticed, whichever submenu is active (such as Settings -> General), that title does show up white. But the inactive subsections are still blacked out. Thanks again!

      Andrew Sunday 31 May 2009
      • Well.. decided to grab a new zip of the plugin and the submenus are fine now, at least in MacOS Firefox, but it should be fine everywhere. Thanks again for the great admin redesign.

        Andrew Monday 01 June 2009
        • Hi Andrew, The IE issue with the bg colour of the menus is explained here: http://deanjrobinson.com/projects/fluency-admin/#comment-72250

          As for the black text on the dark background in your screenshot, the only thing that I can think of off the top of my head that could be causing this is that it looks like you’re using the blue colour scheme in your wp-admin, have you tried it with the grey colour scheme?

          dean.j.robinson Monday 01 June 2009
          • I had it on grey first, then changed to blue. Since the issue was fixed (at least in MacOS) by extracting a newly-downloaded .zip, I think maybe I did play around with the wp-admin.css after all, though I still don’t remember doing it. I’ll check in IE when I get home but I normally don’t use IE anyway. Thanks again for your help, and for the link above that I somehow missed. :)

            Andrew Monday 01 June 2009
          • Just checked in IE and it’s still grey on white, but I don’t care because I use Firefox anyway. :)

            Andrew Monday 01 June 2009
  11. Hey man great theme, I plan to use it on my clients websites as its much easier to navigate then the default wordpress style.

    Just a note I have Events Calender (PLUGIN PAGE: http://tiny.cc/M5b5H) installed and it doesnt show an arrow next to it when not hovered, it does when i hover and it shows the links just fine but doesnt have regular, just wanna let you know. Also i recommend for plugins that do that (add a new admin page you should give it a letter and number as well if this is possible.

    Other then that great work mate, cheers.

    Randy Thursday 21 May 2009
  12. Mr. Robinson,
    Just a note to let you know that Fluency-2 is working under WP-2.8-beta-1.

    Pablo DiCiacco Monday 18 May 2009
  13. Mr. Robinson,
    Under WP 2.7.1 using Fluency 2 an odd bug has arisen. See screenshot: http://tinyurl.com/d4bjlr

    Pablo DiCiacco Friday 08 May 2009
  14. Hey! Pure awesomeness, this plugin is!!! :D Could you give us some control over the fonts used, or just use better typography? =) Artistically, and bent towards design, I got a bit annoyed when I saw that it was automatically showing text in some font like Arial, or Helvetica. Lucida Grande, or Sans Unicode, would be by far more convenient!! :)
    Thanks, nevertheless.

    Vishesh Monday 04 May 2009
  15. I tried it with WPMU and it works fine but there is a problem when you have an admin bar like for buddypress. The admin bar goes into the left panel menu of fluency. Would it be possible to fix it or is it a budypress issue ?

    G Tuesday 28 April 2009
    • Its probably something I can fix in a future version, this version was not tested with WPMU or BuddyPress.

      dean.j.robinson Tuesday 28 April 2009
      • Hey guys, to fix Fluency for use with BuddyPress (using the word “fix” loosely) edit the following:
        In Fluency’s wp-admin.css on line 36 you will find “#adminmenu {…}” in which there is a call to the Fluency2.gif background image. Delete the background information, including background color, and the admin bar will show through.
        The final line 36 should read:
        [code]#adminmenu {font-family:’Helvetica’,’Arial’;margin:0;width:110px;position:fixed;padding-top:40px;top:0;left:0;z-index:2000;}[/code]

        Of course this removes the Fluency2 logo, so my suggestion is to add the logo back to the footer of the theme to give credit.

        Like I said, this is a hack at best, but it seems to work.
        ~ GSN development

        Flynn Thursday 21 May 2009
  16. This theme looks damn cool. cheers mate.

    Rahul Friday 10 April 2009
  17. Beautiful work! I thought the WP 2.7 trunk UI was nice until I saw how you improved it. Bravo!

    Pariah Burke Sunday 05 April 2009
  18. AMAZING job

    Blandine Sunday 05 April 2009
  19. Will this work with Wordpress MU?

    Dante Saturday 04 April 2009
  20. Hi Dean,

    Awesome plugin. Thank you.

    I’m using Flutter cms plugin on a project and that’s when Fluency2 menu stopped working ie submenus didn’t flyout as usual. Is this something you can remedy or is it something Flutter needs to sort out? I’m using the latest firefox browser and wp 2.7.1

    p.s. made a small contribution a few days ago — hope it was enough in AUD for at least a 12-pack of something good :)

    serenine Friday 27 March 2009
    • I should be able to fix, or at least find a work around for, the flutter problem. Its possible that the flutter plugin is making some specific change to the menus (could be a simple css class or they might be changing the structure). When I have some free time (rare of late) I’ll download a copy of flutter and see if I can find the cause. And thanks for your donation, very much appreciated.

      dean.j.robinson Friday 27 March 2009
      • Take your time. I’ve decided to put off using Flutter until some bugs got under control. Thanks for making this plugin — saves a lot of clicks/time.

        serenine Wednesday 15 April 2009
  21. Great plugin, Dean! I’m happy to be able to use it again for 2.7.

    I was immediately impressed with the slide-out menus and their transparency. I am running a local journal on a laptop so I spend little to no time on the actual “site,” making all my entries as an author in the admin panel.

    A quick question — if I wanted to hack the plugin to change the background colors (no offense intended, I just can’t stand white), where would I look?

    Also, someone was complaining about quick-keys and dual-digit submenus; could you possibly use a hexedecimal scheme so one could access up to 15 submenus using digits 1-F?

    Dngrsone Thursday 26 March 2009
    • If you’re referring to the background colors of the page then you’ll probably need to either add some (and/or possibly change) some lines in the fluency css file. I’d recommend using the Firebug extension for Firefox to pin point which styles you might need to fiddle with.

      dean.j.robinson Friday 27 March 2009
      • So, what I’m seeing, then is default css values underlying WordPress itself? Basically the background white… I’d like to tone it down to a very pale pastel of some sort, perhaps lavender or mint.

        I will look into that firebug extension, thanks!

        Dngrsone Friday 27 March 2009
  22. Hi There - I have tried installing this and can’t get the flyout menus to show up at all. The left menu is there, the options just don’t fly out. I tried to figure this out from the comments below but haven’t been able to. Can you help?

    Justin Handley Thursday 26 March 2009
    • Hi Justin, could you provide an info about what browser you are using and if you are getting any errors at all. Thanks.

      dean.j.robinson Thursday 26 March 2009
  23. Cool! I loveit!

    J. Ibanez Monday 23 March 2009
  24. i am looking for any plugin which take less time to edit posts in bulk

    Demon Thursday 19 March 2009
  25. oh thank you for this stuff…

    Amdreas Wednesday 18 March 2009
  26. i am realy like it! great!

    DJ Foto club Sunday 15 March 2009
  27. Hi - I love this plugin, thank you so much! I am using it for all my sites and adore it.

    I’ve been asked by a client if they could have a custom login page - really I think they just want to stick their logo on it. Can you think of any way to accomplish this that doesn’t make it difficult to update your plugin in the future? Ideally I think I’d want an additional style sheet in the site’s theme folder, but I’m not sure how to accomplish this.

    Thank you so much!

    Michelle Saturday 14 March 2009
    • Hi Michelle, the quickest and easiest way to do this is probably to replace the wp_login.gif image thats in the images folder within the fluency plugin folder. This will allow you to swap out the WP logo for the clients logo and you won’t need to worry about touching and css or code.

      dean.j.robinson Thursday 26 March 2009
  28. Good! ))

    AlexPTS Thursday 12 March 2009
  29. This is a really great plugin; alas it seems not to quite work with my browser. I use Camino (kind of like firefox for Mac, gecko kernel but native rendering) and the spiffy black background is not there for the flyout menus. I wind up with a very light blue on white instead, which I can’t really read.

    I poked around the CSS, and it appears that Camino can’t handle the *:first-child+html code. If I take the two following lines:

    *:first-child+html #adminmenu li div.wp-submenu ul {background:#222;}
    *:first-child+html #adminmenu li div.wp-submenu ul li a:hover {background:#111 !important;}

    and paste in a copy of them with the first-child etc. chopped off, then things work perfectly.

    I will do this for every release myself if I have to, because this plugin has saved me from endless irritation, but it would be lovely if there was some way to reconcile the code.

    Branch Saturday 07 March 2009
    • Its correct that those two lines should have no effect at all in Camino, as *:first-child+html is an IE7 hack, because IE7 doesn’t handle rgba background colours (which are used on the flyouts).

      The light blue on white that you’re seeing is the same as what I was seeing in IE7 before adding those lines, so it looks like Camino doesn’t support rgba background colours either, I should be able to fix this for the next release.

      dean.j.robinson Saturday 07 March 2009
    • I had the the same issue in Firefox 2. I tried your method and removed the *:first-child+html code from those two lines and now it looks great!

      Jim Friday 17 April 2009
  30. This is awesome! Any chance you could make it possible to offer a collapsible side-toolbar? When I’m using Fluid with the Fluency plugin, I’d love to relegate the toolbar to an icon/triangle in the top left corner of the screen to help me focus on writing. Possible?

    Chris Messina Friday 27 February 2009
    • So your talking about collapsing it ‘completely’ as opposed to the default behaviour (without fluency installed) which just reduces each item to an icon? Can’t see any reason why it wouldn’t work, so I’ll add it to my list of things to look at when the time comes for an update. Thanks for the suggestion.

      dean.j.robinson Friday 27 February 2009
  31. Hi, this is not working correctly with Opera. =(

    fer Friday 27 February 2009
  32. yikes… i like the dashboard… but omg… if i log out… it really borks my home page… and never goes to that nice new login screen

    Twittrblog Sunday 22 February 2009
  33. Under what license is this sweet little plug-in?

    Christopher Anderton Tuesday 17 February 2009
  34. don’t work here : i’ve no submenu… and font are very crappy.

    stef Sunday 15 February 2009
    • Stef: why don’t you grow up and get a browser like Firefox where you can specify your own fonts on any website? It’s one preference setting away. (I have Helvetiva Neue and this plugin makes my WP look sexy as heck). Or just edit the CSS.

      If you’re not seeing the submenu on the left, then you’re using another plugin that is conflicting with this one. Turn off all plugins that’re not serving an absolutely vital purpose (e.g., Akismet) and see if this works. It has to. Also make sure you don’t have any caching etc in your browser.

      ST Sunday 15 February 2009
      • look strange : i’ve got submenu with local installation of my blog… but with the online one, no submenu….( only if i use the wassup plugin + firefox )..

        with IE, i’ve got the message : “jquery undefined” :/

        stef Sunday 15 February 2009
    • ok that’s work now…. Filezilla don’t upload some Jquery files.

      stef Monday 16 February 2009
  35. I also noticed another very minor problem in the edit post screen.

    http://img15.imageshack.us/img15/7461/51590714ns4.gif

    The screenshot above, when I try to minimise any of those boxes in the edit post screen, there’s a jagged edge at the bottom right and left. But this does not happen on the dash board. :)

    Dayna Saturday 14 February 2009
  36. This theme is very sleek and neat, it makes the admin page loads faster as well. I only have a problem with the admin page of Acronyms 1.6.1, all the other plugins I’m using works well with this theme. :)

    http://ketsugi.com/software/wordpress/acronyms-plugin/

    Is it possible to add support for it as well? Thanks.

    Dayna Saturday 14 February 2009
  37. Excellent look and feel. But unfortunately its not working in IE for me. Entire menu gets shifted to extreme left and is not visible….is there any way I can provide you a screen shot and you can suggest some work around ?

    Vikalp Friday 06 February 2009
  38. A very nice plugin! Unfortunately, the drop down menus do not work with the Opera Browser. Is the Opera browser compatible with Fluency? Or would it be something wrong with my browser?

    Again, congrats on a great plugin.

    Rebecca Thursday 05 February 2009
    • I don’t have Opera installed so the current version of Fluency hasn’t been tested in it. I will try and find the time to test it for a future release.

      dean.j.robinson Thursday 05 February 2009
      • Thank you so much! I will keep checking here for updates, then.

        Rebecca Friday 06 February 2009
  39. Wow, Awesome!
    I like the 2.7 backend a lot, but the menü was still too crowded and not very handy. This Admin Theme gives it just the right amount of contrast and space to work really, really well with WP. Love it!

    Kristof Tuesday 03 February 2009
  40. Does this theme use “em”s in CSS and is therefore not as crowded and useless at WP 2.7’s default theme when my font size in my browser is set to a minimum of 18?

    Erick Saturday 31 January 2009
  41. if the standard nav is minimized when you activate this plugin the Fluency nav does not show up

    Jim Klein Wednesday 28 January 2009
    • yeah… I will probably add a step to the installation/activation to check this setting and adjust accordingly in the next release.

      dean.j.robinson Thursday 05 February 2009
  42. Hi Dean,
    Looks awesome, ‘feels’ great!!

    Cosmopoliman Wednesday 28 January 2009
  43. Dean - this is such a great, useful interface. I love it.

    There are several plugins that allow for re-using posts like a relational database where you define the custom fields associated with them (such plugins are pods, flutter, more-fields, etc). Anyways, all of these plugins create submenus at the same level as posts/pages for each new item you create. Because of that, when using your plugin they all shop up on the main level. So if I create 10 of these new types of posts, then there are 10 top level menu items added to the sidebar, pushing it pretty far down. Is there a way to easily modify either your plugin or theirs to create just 1 top-level menu, then have each of these as popout menus from that 1 top-level menu? Thanks

    danf Tuesday 27 January 2009
    • A follow-up to my request to be able to manage the menus. I found this plugin:
      http://w-shadow.com/blog/2008/12/20/admin-menu-editor-for-wordpress/

      That does exactly that. The two work seamlessly together and now I have been able to accomplish the ultimate back end interface!

      danf Friday 06 February 2009
      • AWESOME WORK DEAN!

        Hi danf-
        How were you able to get Fluency2 (+ Admin Menu 0.1.2 ) to work when Flutter .250 is installed?

        samantha Tuesday 17 February 2009
        • hi samantha - i know i had tested flutter with fluency2 and dont recall having any issues - but that was before i installed admin menu. I don’t use flutter now as it didn’t fit my requirements - I use more-fields plugin to accomplish my needs

          danf Tuesday 17 February 2009
          • Thanks for the reply danf.

            Anyone using flutter and fluency together happily. Please let me know. Thanks.

            samantha Thursday 19 February 2009
          • Thanks for the reply danf.

            Anyone using flutter and fluency together happily, please let me know. Thanks.

            samantha Thursday 19 February 2009
          • Hi, thats the reason i dropped fluency from my projects, as it is near impossible to customise, and doesnt work with Flutter. Flutter is my holy grail, and if something doesnt gel with it, then it has to go.
            From all the admin skins I have tested, I have unfortunatley found the standard wp admin menu to be the best option for a Flutter based install. You can use ‘Menu Editor’ plugin to control what panels you want to show/hide very well with Flutter.
            Good luck!!

            sam Thursday 19 February 2009
          • Hi Sam-
            I will give Menu Editor another look.

            I am just getting started with Flutter — my only question is how I can display the information on my pages. If it looks as easy as it says here: http://flutter.freshout.us/usage/ then I will be very grateful.

            Seems like you got it figured out. If you have any hints, please share :)
            I will need the luck. Thanks.

            samantha Thursday 19 February 2009
  44. Hi Dean,
    I have a question regarding the hotkeys for this plugin. I understand that if you wanted to access the Settings menu, for example, you’d press S and then press 3 for Reading or 1 for General. What happens if you want an item that goes into the double digits? I currently have 14 items under the Settings tab. Is there a way to access the double digit items with hotkeys? Or is this just something I shouldn’t be lazy about and just click on the item? Just a quick question because I absolutely love the hotkeys feature on this plugin.

    Thanks in advance, Jessie

    Jessie Wong Tuesday 20 January 2009
    • Hi Jessie, unfortunately at the moment there isn’t a way to access those menu items with double digit hotkeys, it is something I can look to fix in a future version though.

      dean.j.robinson Wednesday 21 January 2009
  45. Hi Dean
    any progress on the new version? thanks!

    sam Tuesday 20 January 2009
  46. is this plugins .. or new interface for wordpress

    sumit Sunday 11 January 2009
    • Yes, this is a plugin, you just install it as you would another plugin. Once activated the Fluency Admin style should instantly be visible.

      dean.j.robinson Wednesday 21 January 2009
  47. Nice and easy to navigate, smoother than the OEM. This will be a nice addition to my changing over my present html site to WP.

    Dana Hallfors Sunday 11 January 2009
  48. Loved the plugin before WordPress 2.7 and it has only gotten better. I personally found the fonts and some of your boldface text jarring when I activated the plugin. Seemed the default font styles were better, but this is only my own opinion. Keep up the good work!

    The only problem I had with this plugin was when I tried to install it by uploading the entire archive through WordPress manual plugin installation upload form in Plugins > ‘Add New’. The __MACOSX files went into the main /wp-content/plugins directory automatically and WordPress thought it was a separate plugin. This caused page load errors which persisted until I went and manually deleted that directory.

    Marc Saturday 10 January 2009
    • I had the same plugins/__MACOSX/ problem and had to delete this directory to stop errors. Otherwise a fantastic plugin to speed up wordpress. :)

      Jonny Thursday 29 January 2009
  49. what exactly do i have to copy and paste in wich directory?
    i just overwrote similar files, like wp-admin.css….
    i havent been finding a tutorial or a readme file…
    i’m new to this and a little pissed :D beacause its not working like i want it to do!

    so pls reply to this comment & help me , thank you

    Nico Friday 09 January 2009
    • omg, its a plugin buddy. put the whole folder in your ‘plugins’ directory and activate the thing from wp admin.
      shhheeeessh, good luck

      sam Friday 09 January 2009
      • hey sam ;) ,
        thank you for this excellent hint .
        i have destroyed a moment ago my whole directory but, ok^^
        now i can doit the right way ;)
        just activate the plugin ^^

        best regards Nico

        Nico Friday 09 January 2009
  50. Great Job Dean!

    Brad Mahaffey Wednesday 07 January 2009
  51. Thanks for this, this is an awesome plugin. I’m loving the keyboard navigation option as well.

    sclough Wednesday 07 January 2009
  52. First of all, greatly done! You did a wonderful redesign.
    But as mentioned before i would also love a version where the submenu is visible all the time. And maybe the sidebar a little bit wider (and the font size bigger).
    Though a beautiful redesign of fluency, the hotkeys are useful, too. Thanks!

    Kim Korte Monday 05 January 2009
    • Suggestions noted, you’re not the only one to suggest having the submenu always visible.

      dean.j.robinson Monday 05 January 2009
  53. i know this isnt really to do with Fluency plugin, but i am wanting a combination of Fluency admin and the old style horizontal menu, so my Client can always see which admin side submenu they are currently on. (I did this previously with OZH menu on WP2.6, but OZH 2.7 update isnt all that great, i am trying to migrate to Fluency)
    many many thanks!

    sam Sunday 04 January 2009
  54. any chance of keeping the icons to the left of the text?

    sam Sunday 04 January 2009
    • If you were feeling adventurous you could dive into the css and un-comment the lines that are hiding the icons. Beyond that I’m evaluating which suggestions I may or may not incorporate into the next version.

      dean.j.robinson Monday 05 January 2009
      • cool thanks, i got adventurous, and commented out line 50 of the css, but it displays all wrong, and the icons appear all over the place.
        will try a few changes.
        many thanks

        sam Monday 05 January 2009
        • just off the top of my head you might just need to make the menu wider to accommodate the extra width.

          dean.j.robinson Monday 05 January 2009
          • heya, i am trying that, but currently having major probs with the css. tried making all the 110px widths to wider, but the hovers dont move along to the right accordingly.

            also, it seems with the icons uncommented the menu items format themselves like so
            - Appearance
            - - - Users
            - - - - - Tools
            sending all sorts of things to new lines, and generally looking pretty nasty. (using ff3/xp)

            many thanks!

            sam Monday 05 January 2009
  55. hi, great work on the new plugin.
    is there any way we can make the left hand menu a little wider? say 200px
    I have a few menu items that take up two lines of text and it breaks the hovers.

    also, would be great to turn off the hotkey letters.

    many thanks, great work

    sam Sunday 04 January 2009
  56. Great Plugin, light and fast…
    But: Would be even better if it would work with internet explorer (yes, I know, uuuh but I use it…) as I can’t access the whole menu from “settings” due to too many plugins there and IE7 shows the list different than Firefox…

    Frank Saturday 03 January 2009
  57. I dont know how to install it, can someone tell me? Thanx.

    Yixi Friday 02 January 2009
  58. Very god!
    I lovy Fluency.

    João F. Melo Wednesday 31 December 2008
  59. Love the new fluency. I can’t stand the frou frou interface of 2.7, this makes the entire user experience lighter, sleeker, and classier!

    I have a question though, on the wp_login.gif graphic, what font did you use? It is a beautiful graphic and a beautiful font.

    Ronnie Myers Tuesday 30 December 2008
  60. Great job!

    I think there’s a bug. In Firefox, if an author goes into the “edit posts” panel, the title of the posts written by other authors won’t appear, well yes, but it’s white over white background. How can I solve that?

    Salva Portillo Tuesday 30 December 2008
    • I have this issue too. Since installing Fluency (I love it), I have white-on-white post content whenever I try to edit a previously saved draft if I try to go into visual mode. HTML mode usually works fine. I primarily use Chrome but it seems to be a problem with any browser I’ve tried.

      Chewru Guru Monday 12 January 2009
  61. Not download! File not found!

    GrafBlog Monday 29 December 2008
    • Could you please try again, as you may have been trying to download the file while I was in the process of upgrading this site to WordPress 2.7. Please let me know if you are still unable to download the file.

      dean.j.robinson Monday 29 December 2008
  62. Great Work…clean design, easy interface, the best admin solution for Wp2.7. Congratulations

    Guga Fiel Sunday 28 December 2008
  63. God - I was hoping you would do a new version of Fluency - ever since I upgraded to 2.7 I was kinda lost ;-)

    With Fluency 2 I am back to being “doing stuff” instead of “searching stuff”. THANK YOU!

    rosenkrieger Sunday 28 December 2008
  64. By the way, what does the letters in the menu stand for? I was thinking it’s only the starting letter of the menu title but then there’s G for Pages and N for Plugins.

    Nelson Thursday 25 December 2008
    • The letters (and numbers in the submenus) are “hotkeys”, for example to add a new post you could just press “P” then “2” to get to the “add new post” screen. Works great in Firefox and Safari, but there been reports of issues in Internet Explorer.

      dean.j.robinson Monday 29 December 2008
  65. Finally! WordPress has submenus visible without having to click its parent first. I was using a plugin for such functionality then but it was not compatible with Fluency. Now, no need for that. :D

    The arrows are somewhat too big though…

    Nelson Thursday 25 December 2008
  66. Thank you!

    Nelson Thursday 25 December 2008
  67. Very nice work! I’m using it on my humble blog, polaricecap.net. I like much of the functional aspects of Wordpress 2.7, as well as a few of the UI decisions. However, the styling was just a mess (what’s the deal with all the italics everywhere?). Thanks for cleaning up the mess.

    Daniel Genser Sunday 21 December 2008
  68. Minor error” Total navigation disappears after activation of the plugin :S Any idea?

    Two questions: What browser(s) are you seeing this in? And, did you have the default navigation minimized/contracted when you activated it?

    If its option two, all you need to do is deactivate the plugin (which you’ve probably already done), expand the default menu, and then reactivate the plugin, it should then be fine. (see other users comments below)

    dean.j.robinson Friday 19 December 2008
  69. I was not impressed with wordpress 2.7’s new design.. infact it felt dull.. but when I found this plugin.. all my questions where answered.. Thank you so much.. I was this close to ditching Wordpress and looking for a new blogging tool.

    Jase Friday 19 December 2008
  70. Minor error” Total navigation disappears after activation of the plugin :S Any idea?

    E.J. Semeijn Friday 19 December 2008
  71. Very… Very…. Very beautiful!!! Thanks!

    Bishop Thursday 18 December 2008
  72. This is just fantastic! I wasn’t that fond of the collapsible menus. Makes 2.7 even more visually appealing.

    Matt Thursday 18 December 2008
  73. The left sidebar menu doesn’t show up if you activate the plugin when the default menu is collapsed to icon state.

    Oh, Thanks!
    After expand left sidebar and re-activate plugin, it’s work just fine.

    n-blue Wednesday 17 December 2008
  74. The left sidebar menu doesn’t show up if you activate the plugin when the default menu is collapsed to icon state.

    rayk Wednesday 17 December 2008
  75. We’re running the latest version at Chewru.Com — we love it. A couple bugs, maybe:: When I finish a post and publish it — the visual view (not the HTML view), goes entirely white. If you highlight the ‘empty’ box you see the text, but I can’t get it to come up otherwise (forced to edit in HTML going forward). This is a CHROME-only issue as far as I can see.

    In IE8, I can see the text that’s blank in chrome, but the mouse-over menus dont pop up. It looks like it tries too - it builds the frames for the text that should be in there - but they’re blank. The only keyboard shortcuts that show are NUTS — kind of funny.

    Please keep working on this admin backend — it’s great so far!

    Chewru Guru Wednesday 17 December 2008
  76. You have to correct something in your description: if you choose the minimal look in the new Wordpress administration, you don’t have to click to develop the tree.

    Li-An Tuesday 16 December 2008
  77. This looks great! I was impressed with the WP2.7 admin page already, but somehow you’ve found ways to improve it even more. Great work!

    Mike Tuesday 16 December 2008
  78. Beautiful plug!

    0p0 Monday 15 December 2008
  79. Look good but left sidebar is gone in IE8 Beta2.

    n-blue Monday 15 December 2008
  80. Hey, your plugin is so nice!

    jayvee Monday 15 December 2008
  81. Oh, Man, this is beautiful! I was really bummed when I upgraded to WP 2.7 and had to deactivate Fluency Admin, but you have made something really cool, here.

    Mike Haubrich, FCD Monday 15 December 2008
  82. Unfortunately, the left column is not activated in Firefox — - or at least not in the theme I’m using.

    JT Monday 15 December 2008
  83. I see some problems with Safari rendering buttons (edit, delete…) when viewing list of posts. Because of that height of specific post is to big.

    Uroš Gruber Monday 15 December 2008
  84. Just installed the Fluency Admin 2.0 and this rocks! Very well done and user friendly. Sharing with other people as a 5 start must install. Thanks!

    Mario Monday 15 December 2008
  85. A very nice Admin Theme. I used it in my technic blook and i love it to work with.

    Painless Monday 15 December 2008
  86. Very cool. I didn’t think you’d continue fluency after 2.7!

    Harith Sunday 14 December 2008
  87. This is an amazing admin theme! Thank you so much for creating and working on this. The hover over effect is excellent and the keyboard shortcuts are a great time saver. Just plain awesome…

    Jonah West Sunday 14 December 2008
  88. Wow, this is simply great.

    I’m a web designer, and wordpress is obviously my cms of choice. I’ve been looking to use something like this for a long time.

    Anyway i could package this with client work? Just to spice up their final product? I know a lot of clients that would prefer logging into something like this, rather then logging into that default wordpress blue!

    Please, let me know at paul.unr (at) gmail.com

    Paul Sunday 14 December 2008
  89. What I was wondering is why every menu item got it’s shortcut except for the comments. The reason for this is probably that the comments don’t have a submenu, right?

    Yes, thats correct. Comments would have a hotkey if there was a submenu, as the top level hotkeys are only used to activate the submenu. I’ll look at changing this in a future update.

    Personally I can’t figure out what the Akismet menu doesn’t live under Comments, that seems weird to me.

    dean.j.robinson Saturday 13 December 2008
  90. Nice, I’m quite overwhelmed how you managed it to top the also very nice default design. And with the keyboard shortcuts I can finally sale my mouse :)
    What I was wondering is why every menu item got it’s shortcut except for the comments. The reason for this is probably that the comments don’t have a submenu, right? But I think it would be nice to have a shortcut for this also.
    Plugins getting a main menu item obviously don’t get a shortcut. Perhaps it would be nice if one could configure such shortcuts by one selfs.

    pasQualle Saturday 13 December 2008
  91. FYI: Before plugin activation, make sure that the original menu is expanded. Otherwise it will be hidden. There are also transparency issues in Opera, I guess because of Firefox specific CSS-rules.

    Most of the transparency is done using rgba colours, which both Firefox and Safari handle, for IE it should use solid colours. Based on your comment it sounds like Opera may not support rgba.

    In regards to the expanded menu, I actually intended to add some code to make sure that it was set to expanded but I ran out of time to add it in.

    dean.j.robinson Saturday 13 December 2008
    • Yes… the IE(8) stuff needs to be fixed with solid colors.

      Mattz Saturday 25 April 2009
      • First, a great theme

        then we go with the fun part:
        “*:first-child+html” fix mentioned above works like a charm
        this site itself needs “untweaking” to work in IE8 - CSS boxing is broken

        Serge Saturday 02 May 2009
  92. FYI: Before plugin activation, make sure that the original menu is expanded. Otherwise it will be hidden. There are also transparency issues in Opera, I guess because of Firefox specific CSS-rules.

    Great work otherwise, apart from the gorgeous design, I especially like the keyboard shortcuts for menu navigation

    Jeriko Saturday 13 December 2008
  93. I’m not seeing any text other than the post title, but I’m hoping 2.0 means a WP2.7 compatible version? In which case I’ll grab it as soon as I’ve upgraded.

    Indeed it does, you just happened to drop by as I was uploading the new version.

    dean.j.robinson Friday 12 December 2008
  94. I’m not seeing any text other than the post title, but I’m hoping 2.0 means a WP2.7 compatible version? In which case I’ll grab it as soon as I’ve upgraded.

    XIII Friday 12 December 2008

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