Remove dashboard, use Pages tab as default

Question

Is there a way to have "Pages" set as the default tab when the user logs in to the admin area? I am using a heavily customised set up, where none of the dashboard widgets are useful so they are hidden anyway.

Answer 1

The best way is to re-direct user logins to your page and also remove the dashboard from the menu, this can be done with 2 filters.

Redirect logins to your page edit screen example based on user roles, this example uses "author":

function dashboard_redirect($url) {
    global $current_user;
    // is there a user ?
    if(is_array($current_user->roles)) {
        // check, whether user has the author role:
        if(in_array('author', $current_user->roles)) {
             $url = admin_url('edit.php?post_type=page');
        }
        return $url;
    }
}
add_filter('login_redirect', 'dashboard_redirect');   

Remove the "dashboard from the admin menu"

add_action( 'admin_menu', 'Wps_remove_tools', 99 );
function Wps_remove_tools(){
    
    remove_menu_page( 'index.php' ); //dashboard
  
   }

ps. You can also order the admin menu items using the same filter.

Answer 2

This is how you remove DASHBOARD on your Wordpress fully !

For who don't want to use plug-in(s), If you installed a plug-in for remove that. You will get extra menu about that plug-in also. What the point ? So you should have control what you do/did

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Insert codes on functions.php

Redirect : (When user go to url like domain.com/wp-admin)

function dashboard_redirect(){
    wp_redirect(admin_url('edit.php?post_type=page'));
}
add_action('load-index.php','dashboard_redirect');

Redirect after logged-in : (For prevent logging loop bugs also)

function login_redirect( $redirect_to, $request, $user ){
    return admin_url('edit.php?post_type=page');
}
add_filter('login_redirect','login_redirect',10,3);

Remove the Dashboard menu : (Why do you still have it?)

function remove_menus () {
    global $menu;
    $restricted = array(__('Dashboard'));
    //$restricted = array(__('Dashboard'), __('Posts'), __('Media'), __('Links'), __('Pages'), __('Appearance'), __('Tools'), __('Users'), __('Settings'), __('Comments'), __('Plugins'));
    end($menu);
    while(prev($menu)){
        $value = explode(' ',$menu[key($menu)][0]);
        if(in_array($value[0]!= NULL?$value[0]:'',$restricted)){unset($menu[key($menu)]);}
    }
}
add_action('admin_menu','remove_menus');

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Now when user logged-in or go with url like domain.com/wp-admin/ ,..

User will be redirected to domain.com/wp-admin/edit.php?post_type=page

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Answer 3

Yes, use Adminimize Plugin, remove dashboard and let the pages be the first screen when an user logs in. You can customize it very well and do a fine tuning of the entire admin backend!

UPDATE

Use the filter login_redirect and use the admin_url like in this Wordpress Stackechange post: Change default admin page for specific role(s)