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Admin Menu Tweaker Review – Take Control of Your Admin Menu

Are you a WordPress tweaker? If so, you’re probably gonna want to check out this review. Because today I’m going to take a look at Admin Menu Tweaker from Amino-Studio.

Amino-Studio is the same company behind that nifty Ultimate Tweaker plugin I reviewed about a month ago.

While Ultimate Tweaker helps you make any one of 200+ WordPress tweaks, Admin Menu Tweaker, you guessed it, focuses exclusively on customizing the admin menu for you, your clients, or your users.

Admin Menu Tweaker is actually a part of Ultimate Tweaker. But if all you want is admin menu tweaks, you can save a few bucks by purchasing the solo Admin Menu Tweaker instead of the full Ultimate Tweaker plugin.

So What Can Admin Menu Tweaker Do?

So let’s get one thing straight. When discussing the “Admin Menu”, this is what I mean:

admin-menu-tweaker-01

Now that we’re definitely on the same page – here’s what you can do with Admin Menu Tweaker:

  • Reorder menu items. All you need to do is drag and drop your menu items exactly where you want them.
  • Add custom menu items. Easily add new items via a user-friendly interface. No need to dig into code.
  • Hide menu items. You can simply hide an item from the menu or hide an item AND completely block access to it.
  • Add menu separators. If you want to break up your menu, you can add menu separators in a variety of styles.
  • Change icons and colors. You can change the aesthetics of your menu with custom icons and colors.
  • Import/Export custom admin menus. Great for duplicating changes across a network of sites.

And the best part? You can make all of these changes for specific user roles. Or even specific users.

That means you can have one customized admin menu for Administrator accounts, one for Author accounts, and so on.

Who is Admin Menu Tweaker For?

I see a few different uses for Admin Menu Tweaker.

First off, if you’re a developer working on sites for clients, this plugin gives you a simple way to customize the WordPress admin for them. For example, if you’re handing off a site to a non-techie client, they probably don’t need access to Permalinks and other detailed Settings options. Admin Menu Tweaker lets you hide those items. Plus, you can add custom icons and colors for a semi-white-label experience.

If you’re a site owner working with contributors, you’ll also get value from the plugin. For example, you could customize the menu items available to your author or editor user roles.

Finally, if you’re just a regular ‘ole WordPress user with an impressive collection of plugins, Admin Menu Tweaker will let you regain control of your admin panel by hiding and organizing your plugins.

Hands on With Admin Menu Tweaker

Here’s what I love about Admin Menu Tweaker (and Ultimate Tweaker):

Amino-Studio designs super user-friendly interfaces.

When I opened the Admin Menu Tweaker interface – my first reaction was “Is that it?”. And I don’t mean that in a bad way. The plugin gives you a great deal of control over your admin menu, but it’s very intuitive.

Without consulting any docs, you can understand every feature the plugin offers in about 30 seconds. I think that’s great interface design.

Choosing a User Role

Before you make any tweaks, you should choose the user role (or specific user name) for which you want to customize the menu. All you do is click the drop-down and select an option:

Admin Menu Tweaker Review

Then, you’re ready to make your tweaks.

How to Re-Order Menu Items

In the Admin Menu Tweaker interface, you’ll see an exact replica of your current admin menu:

admin-menu-tweaker-1

To move a menu item, literally all you need to do is is click and drag it to where you want it to appear:

admin-menu-tweaker-2

The drag and drop interface isn’t limited to top-level menu items either. You can do the exact same thing with sub-menu items. You can either re-arrange them within the same sub-menu, or drag them to the top-level menu:

admin-menu-tweaker-3

One thing to note is that you can’t nest menu items too deeply. For example, you can’t drag a menu item with an existing sub-menu to another sub-menu. That’s a confusing way of saying you can’t create sub-sub-menu items!

Adding a New Menu Item or Separator

To add a new element to your menu, you just need to click on the + button:

admin-menu-tweaker-4

Then, you choose whether you want the new element to be a menu item or a separator:

admin-menu-tweaker-5

For a new menu item, you first choose a name. Then, you can choose whether to create a new admin page (with custom slug) or redirect the menu item to a custom URL (e.g. to send to a front-end or external page):

admin-menu-tweaker-6

For a new separator, you can choose a custom style, width, and color:

admin-menu-tweaker-7

Hiding Menu Items

Whenever you click on a menu item, you’ll see two options to hide it from view:

admin-menu-tweaker-8

Normally, when you hide a menu item manually, users can still visit the menu page via a direct URL. So while it makes it difficult for people to access, it’s not impossible. Admin Menu Tweaker gives you an option to change that:

  • Hidden and access is deniedthe menu item is hidden and blocked. If someone tries to access it directly, they will see a “forbidden” page.
  • Hidden and access is available by URL – the menu item is hidden but can still be accessed by a direct link.

It’s great that Admin Menu Tweaker lets you choose – many plugins don’t.

Styling Menu Items

Last thing I’ll show you! You can similarly style any menu items by clicking on them:

admin-menu-tweaker-9

You can choose a custom icon from one of the 4,000+ included icons or insert your own image. Then, you can choose a custom color for that icon. Again, this is a nice way to add a touch of white-labeling to your dashboard.

admin-menu-tweaker-10

Admin Menu Tweaker Pricing and Support

Admin Menu Tweaker only costs $14 and is available for purchase at Code Canyon. While I think this price is more than fair for the order it can bring to your admin menu, you should consider that the full Ultimate Tweaker only costs $21.

So unless you know that you only want to customize your admin menu, it might be a good idea to fork out the extra $7 for the full Ultimate Tweaker package.

With your purchase, you get support via standard Envato licensing. But like I said, I doubt you’ll need any help to get up and running. The plugin is quite simple to use.

Final Thoughts

Admin Menu Tweaker excels at what it’s designed to do: customize the WordPress admin menu. While it’s definitely a niche use, if you’re looking for a simple, intuitive way to clean up the admin menu for you or your clients, Admin Menu Tweaker is the perfect solution.

Click to Go to Admin Menu Tweaker

Colin Newcomer is a freelance writer and long-time Internet marketer. He specializes in digital marketing, WordPress and B2B writing. He lives a life of danger, riding a scooter through the chaos of Hanoi. You can also find him on Twitter.

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