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Free Plugin by Scott Reilly v2.1

Force Admin Color Scheme

Force a single admin color scheme for all users of the site.

Force Admin Color Scheme

The facts

Rating
5★ from 2
Active installs
600+
Price
Free
Last updated
17 Apr 2025
Added
Mar 2016
Requires WP
4.1
Tested up to
WP 6.8.8
Downloads
10,911

Our analysis

AI-assisted

Force Admin Color Scheme is a WordPress plugin that allows you to enforce a single admin color scheme for all users on your site. This can be useful for distinguishing between multiple sites used by the same users, or for clearly marking production and staging environments. The plugin also helps maintain a consistent brand-appropriate colour scheme across the admin interface.

The plugin removes the admin color scheme setting from users who do not have the capability to set it globally, preventing confusion about whether they can change the colour scheme. It includes a filter for further customization, allowing developers to set different color schemes based on user roles.

Best for: This plugin is suitable for WordPress site administrators who want to standardize the admin interface across multiple users or environments.

What it does well

  • Free to use from the WordPress.org directory
  • Enforces a consistent admin colour scheme for all users
  • Removes admin color scheme setting from non-privileged users
  • Customizable via a filter for developers

Where it falls short

  • Limited feature information available
  • No visual options for users to change color scheme

Verdict

Force Admin Color Scheme provides a straightforward solution for managing admin colour schemes, particularly in multi-site or staging environments. However, its limited configurability for end users may not appeal to everyone.

From the developer

Scott Reilly's own description of Force Admin Color Scheme, lightly tidied.

Though it is typically an individually configurable aspect of WordPress, there are times when forcing a single admin color scheme upon all users of a site can be warranted, such as to:

  • Provide a unique backend color scheme for multiple sites used by the same set of users to reinforce the difference between the sites.
  • Clearly denote backend differences between a production and staging/test instance of a site. Especially given that in this situation with the same plugins active and often the same data present, it can be easy to get mixed up about what site you’re actually on.
  • Force a site brand-appropriate color scheme.
  • Crush the expression of individuality under your iron fist.

Additionally, the plugin removes the “Admin Color Scheme” profile setting from users who don’t have the capability to set the admin color scheme globally since being able to set its value gives them the false impression that it may actually apply.

Links: Plugin Homepage | Plugin Directory Page | GitHub | Author Homepage

Hooks

The plugin is further customizable via one filter. Typically, code making use of filters should ideally be put into a mu-plugin or site-specific plugin (which is beyond the scope of this readme to explain).

c2c_force_admin_color_scheme (filter)

The ‘c2c_force_admin_color_scheme’ filter allows you to set or override the forced admin color scheme. Use of the constant (“) takes priority over the filtered value, but the filtered value takes priority over the value set via the admin.

Arguments:

  • $color (string): The name of the admin color scheme. If an empty string is returned, then the plugin will behave as if no forced admin color scheme has been defined.

Example:

/**
 * Sets a forced admin color scheme based on user. Admins get one color scheme, whereas everyone else gets another.
 *
 * @param string $color The current forced admin color scheme. Empty string indicates no forced admin color scheme.
 * @return string
 */
function my_c2c_force_admin_color_scheme( $color ) {
    return current_user_can( 'manage_options' ) ? 'sunrise' : 'coffee';
}
add_filter( 'c2c_force_admin_color_scheme', 'my_c2c_force_admin_color_scheme' );

Read the full description on the official page →

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