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
).
[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;
}