Wider Admin Menu

Description

Wider Admin Menu is a standalone plugin built, maintained & operated by the friendly folks over at MachoThemes.

Wider Admin Menu is a lightweight plugin that lets you set the width of your admin menu from the default 160px up to 300px.

A separate stylesheet is also included if you wish to avoid Yet Another Plugin. See FAQ.

This plugin will leave no trace! If you delete the plugin, all settings will be removed from the database. Guaranteed. However, simply deactivating it will leave your settings in place, as expected.

Screenshots

  • Before
  • After

Installation

Option A:

  1. Go to Plugins > Add New.
  2. Search for “wider admin menu”.
  3. Click “Install Now”.

Option B:

  1. Download the zip file.
  2. Unzip it on your hard drive.
  3. Upload the wider-admin-menu folder to the /wp-content/plugins/ directory.

Option C:

  1. Download the zip file.
  2. Upload the zip file via Plugins > Add New > Upload.

Finally, activate the plugin.

By default, the plugin will set the width of the admin menu to 200px. Go to Settings > Wider Admin Menu to select a new width.

FAQ

I don’t need a plugin. Can I just add some code to my stylesheet?

Sure. That’s actually how this plugin started out. If you simply need a wider admin bar and you’re cool with CSS then try this:

Look in the plugin’s /css folder for the file wider-admin-menu.css.

Then either copy its contents to your theme’s stylesheet,

OR

copy the file to your theme folder and add this to your theme’s functions.php to load it:

function wider_admin_menu() {
  wp_enqueue_style( 'wider-admin-menu', get_stylesheet_directory_uri() . '/wider-admin-menu.css' );
}
add_action( 'admin_enqueue_scripts', 'wider_admin_menu' );

That covers WordPress 4.0 and up.

For WordPress 3.8 to 3.9.2, substitute wider-admin-menu-38.css.

For WordPress 3.5 to 3.7.1, substitute wider-admin-menu-35.css.

For WordPress 3.3 to 3.4.2, substitute wider-admin-menu-33.css.

Need a hand? I’m on the support forum.

How can I contribute a translation?

Translate directly on wordpress.org. Thanks!

Leave no trace? What’s that about?

Some plugins and themes don’t fully uninstall everything they installed – things like settings, database tables, subdirectories. That bugs me. Sometimes, it bugs your WordPress too.

So this plugin will completely remove itself upon deletion. Deactivating the plugin will leave the settings intact, though. As an added bonus, you can switch off “Leave No Trace” so the settings remain after deletion, if you want.

Reviews

July 14, 2023 1 reply
I did not realize that narrow Admin Menu is what makes me uncomfortable until I saw this plugin. Installed it and it indeed does help.
May 31, 2023 6 replies
This should be the default Admin left navigation width! Brilliant plugin - I just wish that Gutenberg editor and others recognised this width, as they seem to be left-aligned to the original width, hiding an important part of their interfaces. Maybe there's another way to implement this? Or maybe an alternative would be knocking the font size down a couple of pixels but within the original width for less wrapped text, or maybe just change the way text wraps. Nice try though, appreciate someone making the effort for the obvious issue that core has missed.
December 16, 2021 1 reply
Tested this plugin and the admin area looks better right away. Such a simple but effective improvement. Never happened before in all those years like this with anything in WordPress. Thank you so much.
December 4, 2021 1 reply
An interesting plugin with a very interesting ability to customize the admin menu. I haven’t seen such a fonction in WP plugins yet!!! thanks
December 10, 2020 1 reply
After installing, activating, then deactivating and uninstalling this plugin without changing it's settings, the database increased by 0.1 MB! - although the developers wrote that after removing the plugin, nothing remains in the database.
July 13, 2020 1 reply
Great helper plugin! I just copied the css to my build system and made the width a scss variable. Fast adjustments! :))
Read all 21 reviews

Contributors & Developers

“Wider Admin Menu” is open source software. The following people have contributed to this plugin.

Contributors

“Wider Admin Menu” has been translated into 1 locale. Thank you to the translators for their contributions.

Translate “Wider Admin Menu” into your language.

Interested in development?

Browse the code, check out the SVN repository, or subscribe to the development log by RSS.

Changelog

1.4 – 2022-01-10

  • Changed slider with jquery ui slide
  • Removed extra script
  • Removed extra style
  • Added: Sanitization and escapes

1.3.2 – 2019-10-18

  • Fix WP Side Menu going over Gutenberg/Editor

1.3.1 – 2019-09-12

  • Translation ready
  • Created pot file

1.3 – 2018-12-09

  • Updated for WordPress version 5 and Gutenberg editor.

1.2.3 – 2017-11-16

  • Minor refactoring.
  • Removed translation file.

1.2.2 – 2017-09-04

  • Update URLs.

1.2.1 – 2017-04-14

  • Update URLs.

1.2 – 2016-06-24

  • New “Leave No Trace” icon.

1.1.3 – 2016-04-29

1.1.2 – 2015-04-22

  • Fix minor JavaScript bug on Settings page.

1.1.1

  • Remove “RC” from version check.
  • Add uninstall.php.

1.1

  • Updated for WordPress 4.0.

1.0

  • Object-oriented refactor.
  • Improved i18n, ready for translations.

0.3

  • Use PHP version_compare function.
  • Fix footer style for WordPress 3.5 to 3.7.1.
  • Add “Alternate Method” instructions.
  • Use WordPress coding standards.

0.2.3

  • Updated for WordPress 3.8.2.

0.2.2

  • Added empty localization directory.

0.2.1

  • Version bump to trigger update message for anyone who downloaded my svn-fubar.

0.2

  • Moved CSS from style.php to in-page section.

0.1

  • First release.