Vivaldi browser Speed Dial with my Zenphoto websites
This is my first plugin for Zenphoto CMS and it offers users to customize Admin section to their liking.
Info and Download: adminBranding plugin for Zenphoto
Read more about plugin creation below:
As usual with me, this plugin came to be thanks to my own need to differentiate more easily among several projects I’m currently using Zenphoto CMS for.
It was very easy to click on a wrong icon in the Speed Dial of my Vivaldi browser or to get confused when in Admin section of my sites – which one is that? They do share some settings and general look and feel, but there are some differences that demand individual approach to management. I needed some way to tell at a glance, where I’m working right now.
For some time, I did that by replacing default Zenphoto logo file with my own and changing admin.css – but those changes were always reset upon update… So, in November of 2023 I’ve posted on Zenphoto forum a feature request for custom styling for Admin and was pointed towards zp-branding plugin which, at the time, only did one thing from my list of desired options (replaced the logo).
Finally, after latest Paradigm v1.6 release in early May, I got around to check zp-branding out. It added an option to replace backend logo, but not in a way much different from what I was doing with default Zenphoto logo at the time – the only difference was that now I’d have to replace the file upon plugin update, not Zenphoto update… But since my feature request post, zp-branding also recieved un update with added option for custom CSS, which could be used to alter background too.
Much better, but still not enough.
Instead of making-do and compromising on frequency of file replacements, I’ve decided to just add those absent features myself and in the end I reworked the whole plugin to use completely different approach, which prevents overwriting of any user files. Other changes included renaming variables to adhere to Zenphoto standard, greatly expanding options, allows user to mix and match plugin Options to combine custom and default elements – all of it would have meant that plugin would have gone to version 2.0.
I’ve created a fork of zp-branding on Github, to pay my dues and maybe submit my changes to the original plugin, but after discussion with author of original zp-branding, fretzl, we’ve decided to keep projects separate, as he had his own vision for his project.
So zp-branding v2.0 became adminBranding v1.0, my first solo-plugin for Zenphoto & effectively my first public repository on Github.
