WordPress MU

If I gave you a list of all the things that niggle me about the user-interface and navigation of WPMU 1.5, you would all say that I'm resistant to change, need time to adapt and in any case am really anal! So I won't compile the list in public, but was just wondering whether anyone else finds the 1.5 interface (once logged in) sometimes confusing and unintuitive to navigate as well as pretty horrible on the eye.

Has anyone attempted a drastic rework of the interface and navigation (actually moving menu options around, redesigning some of the interface as well as cosmetic changes such as colours etc).

I've already done some customisation of the core CSS files, to fix some of the problems that really were irritating me (font sizes of menus - improving hierarchy, colours, more effective utilisation of screen space especially under Site Admin options etc), but I was thinking of more drastic action as above.

I also noticed in wp-admin/CSS, a file called colors-classic.css, but not sure what this was there for as the main backend theme is using colors-fresh.css.

Oh, there's tons of buzz in the bloggosphere about the new backend. There's even a branch of Wp testing a re-do.

I really didn't like it, but I'm getting used to it.

The two admin css files are for colors schemes. See your user profile to switch them.Plugin here for more:
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/easy-admin-color-schemes/

There's also an admin area plugin that changes up the whole backend, menu-wise. It puts them all down the left side.
http://deanjrobinson.com/projects/fluency-admin/

Ooo, here's another for Mac-heads -
http://www.teddyhwang.com/resources/leopardadmin/

The biggest part is there are plenty enough hooks in the backend to override things via plugin, so you have less hacks with future upgrades.

If you put these in the regular plugin folder, then they will be on a user-by-user basis.

Nice one andrea_r - I'm glad its not just me that was having problems with the changes! Will check out the links.

personally I am a fan of this one: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/lighter-admin-drop-menus/

Yeah, I use something similar on one of my sites. :)

the only downside to fluency admin is that it distorts the blog links along the top of the screen. if a user has more than a single blog, they don't show correctly. well, at least not for me.