Mawu Dark Mode for the Admin Dashboard & Editor

Journal

0.9.7

• Plugin listing tidied: a shorter name (« Mawu Dark Mode for the Admin Dashboard & Editor ») and plainer wording, without repeating the same phrase.

0.9.6

• Clearer plugin listing: a new name on WordPress.org (« Mawu Dark Mode – Admin Dark Theme for Dashboard & Editor »), a rewritten description and new FAQ answers.
• The settings page has a small link to rate Mawu on WordPress.org.

0.9.5

• Settings page: the theme cards are roomier, with even spacing on every side. Each card shows the theme name, then its collection and how many people use it.
• Settings page: the header now shows Mawu’s real moon icon.

0.9.4

• New look for Settings → Mawu Dark Mode: frosted-glass cards in Mawu’s own violet palette, with your theme, dark hours and site usage shown as cards across the top.
• The settings page has its own Auto, Light and Dark switch. Auto follows your admin: dark under a Mawu theme, light under WordPress’s own schemes.
• Every color on the page passes accessibility contrast checks in both light and dark, including over the soft background glow.

0.9.3

• The plugin is now listed as by Uwawp, with links to uwawp.com, the same as Ariadne Related Posts.

0.9.2

• New for plugin developers: Mawu’s colors are available as CSS variables (--mawu-surface, --mawu-text and others, listed in the FAQ), so other plugins can show their admin screens dark from the start instead of flashing white.

0.9.1

• Fixed a white flash when hovering the Categories or Tags panel headers (and similar animated hovers) in the block editor sidebar. Hovered panel headers now show a darker shade of your theme instead.
• Fixed the white flash when you load or refresh Appearance → Menus. Site Health, Privacy, the theme and plugin file editors, and empty lists no longer flash white either.
• Fixed the Plugins → « View details » popup staying completely white.
• Fixed light tabs and pill-shaped filter links staying light (for example the tabs on Appearance → Menus), and the gray counts next to filter links (like « All (2,405) ») being hard to read.
• Links and buttons in your theme’s color now switch to white or black when another plugin puts them on its own colored background (for example AI Engine’s blue header), so they stay readable.
• Buttons and boxes that other plugins color with modern CSS color formats (oklab, oklch) are now darkened like everything else.
• The expand arrows on block editor sidebar panels are visible again.
• Dark login screen: the password « show » eye icon and the Remember Me checkbox now match your theme, instead of staying WordPress blue and bright white.

0.9.0

• New Hero collection: seven bold dark themes, each built around one signature color. Emerald (green), Gargoyle (yellow on charcoal), Skyline (red on navy), Forge (orange on dark red), Onyx (purple), Velocity (gold on crimson) and Abyss (teal). Like every Mawu theme, each one passes accessibility contrast checks for text, links and buttons.
• The settings page now has a filter, so you can show all themes or just one collection. The theme grid fits more cards per row.
• The usage chart on the settings page now only shows themes people actually use, busiest first. The rest are listed on one line.

0.8.0

• New settings page. Settings → Mawu Dark Mode now shows all six themes as live previews, and you can switch to one with a single click. It also shows your schedule, and how many people on your site use each theme (counted on your site only; nothing is sent anywhere).
• The block editor now uses your theme’s colors: the Publish button, the + inserter, toggles, focus outlines and the selected-block outline follow your Mawu theme instead of staying WordPress blue.
• Scheduled dark mode now says whether dark hours are on right now, when the next switch happens, and that the times follow your site’s clock. The time fields hide while scheduling is off.
• The login screen theme choice only appears once the dark login screen is turned on, with a small preview of how it will look.

0.7.6

• Links are easier to read. Each theme now has its own link color that meets accessibility contrast on cards and panels (Mawu and Ember links were slightly too dim before), and no longer looks like a warning or error message.
• Secondary and hint text now stay a step dimmer than body text, instead of all turning the same shade in dark mode.
• Admin pages load less code: Mawu’s dark-mode script is now minified, cutting what it adds to each admin page from about 50 KB to about 7 KB. The readable source still ships with the plugin.
• Old settings left over from version 0.5 and earlier are now cleaned up automatically.

0.7.5

• Fixed people who don’t use a Mawu theme getting a dark writing area in the block editor and Classic Editor. The dark canvas now only appears for someone using one of Mawu’s themes.
• Fixed Mawu wiping out colors that other plugins set directly on their own elements, such as status dots and colored badges, once you interacted with the page. This also brings back the color previews in Users → Profile → Admin Color Scheme.
• Fixed scheduled dark mode replacing your normal color scheme if you saved your profile during dark hours. The profile page now shows your saved scheme, with a note when dark hours are on.
• Colored badges and buttons with mid-tone backgrounds no longer get lighter in dark mode, so their white text stays readable.
• Uninstalling Mawu now also removes everyone’s scheduled dark mode settings, and cleans up every site on a multisite network.

0.7.4

• Fixed the « Select » / « Insert into post » button in the media picker (Add Media, Set featured image) showing as a bright light-gray block while no file is selected. Disabled buttons now use the theme’s own dark colors, and still switch to the theme’s accent color once you pick a file.

0.7.3

• Fixed some plugins’ checkbox-style controls (e.g. Cloudways WordPress Migrator’s « I agree to Terms & Conditions » checkbox) looking checked when they weren’t. Some plugins draw their checkmark with a hardcoded white icon that’s only meant to be invisible against a light, unchecked box — darkening the page around it was making that icon visible by accident. It now stays properly hidden until the box is actually checked.
• Verified compatible with WordPress 7.1.2.

0.7.2

• Fixed toggle switches (e.g. other plugins’ « flat » on/off switches, like Rank Math’s « Lock Modified Date », and WordPress’s own toggle switches in the block editor’s Preferences panel) keeping the same color regardless of whether they were actually on or off — the color now updates the moment you click it.
• Fixed a related issue in radio button groups where switching to a new option could leave the previous option still looking selected.

0.7.1

• Fixed white/light text on the « Plugin Details » and « Theme Details » popup (the one you get from Plugins → Add New, or Appearance → Themes) — it’s a real full-page navigation inside its own iframe, not just an overlay, and wasn’t getting dark-mode styling.
• Fixed the dark-mode engine potentially freezing the tab for a couple of seconds right after a page finishes loading, on admin screens with a very large number of rows (e.g. « Number of items per page » set high on a big list). It now recolors the page in small time-sliced batches instead of all at once.

0.7.0

• Added per-user scheduled dark mode: set your own dark hours (e.g. 7pm–7am) on your Profile screen and Mawu automatically switches your admin color scheme to a chosen dark theme during that window, then reverts to your normal scheme the rest of the time. Configured entirely on your own profile, no site-wide setting.
• Gave every theme’s own accent color real presence throughout the admin content area — links, primary buttons, focus outlines, checked checkboxes/radios, and active tabs now use the theme’s own accent instead of WordPress core’s default blue.
• Added semantic status colors (success/warning/error/info) for notices, kept intentionally separate from each theme’s brand accent so status meaning stays unambiguous regardless of which theme is active.
• Fixed several color-contrast accessibility issues found during an audit: muted text on five of the six themes fell short of WCAG AA contrast against its actual background; the login screen’s primary button text was very low contrast on several themes.
• Fixed the original « Mawu » theme’s block-editor heading color, which had drifted out of sync with its own token.

0.6.0

• Theme selection is now fully per-user — removed the site-wide « Force for everyone » setting entirely. Every admin picks their own theme from Users → Profile → Admin Color Scheme; the (unauthenticated) login screen keeps its own separate theme choice under Settings → Mawu Dark Mode → Login screen theme.
• The five nature themes are now labeled « Canopy – Mawu », « Tide – Mawu », « Dune – Mawu », « Ember – Mawu », and « Fern – Mawu » in the color-scheme picker.
• Fixed a significant bug: the per-element dark-mode engine that actually recolors most dashboard/editor content only ever ran for the « Mawu » theme itself — Canopy, Tide, Dune, Ember, and Fern never got its benefit, leaving white/unstyled regions anywhere critical CSS didn’t already specifically cover. Now runs correctly for all six themes.
• Fixed the Themes screen’s theme cards (name bar, hover actions, buttons) rendering with a white background.
• Fixed a disabled dropdown (e.g. Settings → Reading’s « static page » choosers) keeping its native white background.
• Fixed the Dashboard’s Recent Comments widget rows losing a background-color specificity conflict against WordPress core.
• Fixed a real upgrade-path bug: sites that had a login screen theme configured before this version could silently lose that choice back to the default. It’s now correctly carried forward.
• Fixed the block editor’s post title/heading color on the original « Mawu » theme, which had drifted to a slightly wrong shade.

0.5.0

• Added five new dark themes — Canopy, Tide, Dune, Ember, and Fern — alongside Mawu, each with its own take on the block editor canvas, Classic Editor, and login screen.
• The « Force for everyone » setting now includes a theme picker, so you can choose which of the six themes gets applied.

0.4.10

• Added dark styling for the Customizer (Appearance → Customize) — the panel shell and every section/panel title are now dark. Note: on themes with a very large number of Customizer panels, some individual control labels only go dark once you interact with that panel, rather than immediately.

0.4.9

• Fixed the « Screen Options »/ »Help » tab buttons flashing white on every single admin screen.
• Fixed remaining flashes on the Dashboard (Welcome panel, Recent Comments widget, Quick Draft), the Media Library’s Attachment Details dialog, and the Comments screen’s Quick Edit reply box.

0.4.8

• Fixed the Add Plugins screen’s tab row (Featured/Popular/Recommended/Favorites) and « Popular tags » box flashing white on load.

0.4.7

• Fixed the real cause of an intermittent white flash on hover in the block editor sidebar: on a page with many plugins loading their own editor scripts, our own script could run late enough that a hover happening right after the page loads wouldn’t be caught yet.

0.4.6

• Fixed a hover background that got stuck permanently dark after the mouse moved away, instead of returning to normal (found on the AI Engine « Generate Title » row dropdown).
• Internal: fixed inline SVG icons never actually being protected from the recoloring engine (a case-sensitivity bug meant the intended skip silently never matched), which was also letting an icon’s individual sub-parts get redundantly recolored instead of the icon as a whole.

0.4.5

• Fixed a hover white background on the block editor sidebar’s collapsible panel headers (e.g. the « Tags » panel), where the light background lived on the row around the button rather than the button itself.

0.4.4

• Fixed the remaining flash on Add Plugins card details.
• Fixed the « Plugin/Theme Details » popup rendering completely white.
• Fixed unreadable text in the block editor’s Tags field.

0.4.1

• Fixed the legacy Widgets screen flashing white (found proactively, not reported).

0.4.0

• Internal groundwork for supporting additional dark themes in the future.
• Fixed remaining flashes on the Add Plugins/Add Themes card grids, the color-scheme picker, and list tables on the Plugins and Updates screens.

0.2.9

• Fixed the post title not actually applying its dark color (was present but losing a CSS specificity conflict).
• Fixed invisible checkbox/radio buttons in Settings screens.
• Fixed inconsistent flashing in list tables and form fields.
• Removed an internal behavior that was making some borders look inconsistent.

0.2.6

• Fixed cards, tables, and notices still briefly flashing light before darkening.

0.2.5

• Further reduced the flash of light styling on page load/reload.

0.2.4

• Softened the overall color palette for a more comfortable, less stark contrast.
• Fixed another caching edge case for Classic Editor’s dark styling.

0.2.2

• Fixed the post title not showing in the block editor.
• Fixed an issue where a color-scheme update could keep serving an old cached stylesheet.

0.2.1

• Fixed the block editor’s writing canvas not darkening on some themes.
• Reduced an initial flash of light styling on page load.
• Softened background contrast to better match the rest of the dark theme.
• Fixed some hover states still showing light styling.

0.2.0

• The main dashboard area is now recolored per-element in real time instead of with a single blanket effect, giving more consistent, more legible dark styling across core WordPress screens and other plugins’ admin pages alike.

0.1.0

• Initial release: Mawu admin color scheme, block editor dark mode, Classic Editor dark mode, optional dark login screen, settings screen.