Change the Default Pages Menu View in wp-admin

Question

I can't seem to figure out how to change the default view for "Pages" in the admin menu.

The initial view is the "Pages" view (/wp-admin/edit.php?post_type=page)

How could it change this to something else?
Like "Add New Page"? (/wp-admin/post-new.php?post_type=page)

I've tried several different options including rebuilding the menu with a custom menu, but it seems like WordPress automatically keeps redirecting the "Pages" view (/wp-admin/edit.php?post_type=page).

Answer 1

[Update]
Answer rewritten, based on this other Q&A.

---

To achieve this:

Use this code:

add_filter( 'custom_menu_order', 'wpse_48933_submenu_order' );

function wpse_48933_submenu_order( $menu_ord ) 
{
    global $submenu;

    // Enable the next line to inspect the $submenu values
    // echo '<pre>'.print_r($submenu,true).'</pre>';

    $arr = array();
    $arr[] = $submenu['edit.php?post_type=page'][10];
    $arr[] = $submenu['edit.php?post_type=page'][5];
    $submenu['edit.php?post_type=page'] = $arr;

    return $menu_ord;
}

Answer 2

In a custom plugin, use this PHP to remove the Pages page.

add_action( 'admin_menu', 'my_custom_pages' );

function my_custom_pages() {
    remove_menu_page('edit.php?post_type=page'); // Pages
            add_menu_page('Pages', 'Pages', 'author', 'pages', 'my_custom_menu_page' );
}

function my_custom_menu_page() {
    // The function to load your new page
}

This will need customizing, but it takes care of removing the original and replacing it with yours.

Answer 3

A different way of doing this is to add your custom query variable into the loading of the page.

add_action('pre_get_posts', 'my_custom_query_vars' );
function my_custom_query_vars() {
    $screen = get_current_screen();
    if ( $screen->id == 'edit-page' ) {
        set_query_var( 'orderby', 'custom_page_order' );
    }
}