To customize the admin, we need the AdminTheme module provided by Inchoo, one of the most popular companies that provides great Magento tutorials and services.
The module simply gives you the possibility to define the theme folder of the admin skin in the admin configuration.
1. Installing the module to change the folder path
You can download the module from http://inchoo.net/ecommerce/magento/custom-admin-theme-in-magento/. The following screenshot shows the module page on the Inchoo website, where you can download the module:
Read the article that opens on the website, and there you will find the link to download the module. After downloading it, use the following steps to install it and to create the admin theme folder:
- Extract the folder and copy all the files into your Magento [root]/
- Refresh the cache unless you had disabled the cache entirely during
- Now, create your admin theme folder, for example, bookstore in the app/design/adminhtml/default/bookstore folder.
- Also, create the skin admin folder under skin/adminhtml/default/bookstore.
- If you have already logged in the admin, log out and log in again in the admin to avoid the 404 error in the theme module You can experience this error even if the cache is disabled.
- Now go to the admin and navigate to System | Configuration | General| Design (Default Config scope). As you can see, a new tab named Admin Theme appears on the right with a new input text field.
- That field will allow you to define the admin theme folder, similar to the frontend package. So insert the name of your theme folder, bookstore, inside the field as shown in the following screenshot:
- Save the
Done. Now the admin theme will take the files from the bookstore folder.
If you refresh the page, you will not notice any change, because the fallback system will always take the files from the default admin theme.
Thus, it doesn’t need to download all the base theme files to customize the admin skin, but just the files you need to edit.
Source: Sacca Andrea (2014), Mastering Magento theme design, Packt Publishing; Illustrated edition.