Displaying a Different Theme For Administration in Drupal

This recipe describes how to set up Drupal to use a different theme only for administration pages. This is a frequent requirement especially on brochure sites which have a limited number of regions where blocks can be placed or have missing page elements such as breadcrumbs which reduces usability. Having a separate administration theme also comes in handy during custom theme design as the site could well be largely unusable during the initial stages of development. A stable administration interface will therefore ensure that administrative tasks can still be performed effortlessly until the new theme becomes ready.

How To Do It:

• Login to your drupal Site.
• Navigate to Admin | Appearance | Administration theme

• Choose Garland (or any other theme of choice) in the Administration theme drop down at the bottom of the page.
• Click the Save configuration button to save our changes in the database.
• Viewing an administration page should confirm that the specified administration theme being used in preference to the default theme.

How It Works:

• Every time a page is displayed, Drupal checks to see if the URL of the page begins with admin. If it does and if we have specified an administration theme, Drupal overrides the default theme being used with the specified theme.