Overriding a message block in Magento theme affects the admin area

Question

I wanted to provide a different style and markup for the notices. I thought these were found in a template file 'core/messages' but it turns out the output comes from a block Mage_Core_Block_Messages. When I override this block within my own custom module it works fine. But then in the admin area it also adopts this same markup and style.

How can I avoid this?

Answer 1

you can find whether request is from admin side or from frontend

public function isAdmin()
{
    if(Mage::app()->getStore()->isAdmin()){
        return true;
    }

    if(Mage::getDesign()->getArea() == 'adminhtml'){
        return true;
    }
    return false;
}