Description
WordPress has long provided inline documentation throughout the administrative interface that provide explanations for various features and input fields. This includes an explanations of excerpts, trackbacks, custom fields, page parents, etc. These are great for newcomers to WordPress, but for those with sufficient familiarity these bits of text are no longer necessary and merely provide visual noise. This plugin gets rid of those descriptive texts.
The plugin’s behavior is made available as a per-user profile option. Each user who wishes to enable expert mode for themselves must do so individually by going into their profile, checking the field āExpert modeā, and then pressing the āUpdate Profileā button.
Specifically, this plugin removes:
-
Dashboard
- Description of āWelcome to WordPress!ā panel
-
Categories
- Description of āCategory Nameā
- Description of āCategory Slugā
- Description of āCategory Parentā
- Description of āDescriptionā
-
Edit Post
- Description of āCustom Fieldsā
- Description of āExcerptsā
- Description of āTrackbacksā
-
Edit Page
- Description of comment status
- Description of āCustom Fieldsā
- Verbose descriptions of āAttributesā (parent, template, and order)
-
Edit Link
- Description of āNameā
- Description of āWeb Addressā
- Description of āDescriptionā
- Description of āTargetā
- Description of āLink Relationships (XFN)ā
-
Tags
- Description of āTag nameā
- Description of āTag slugā
-
Widgets
- Text indicating that widgets are added from the listing of widgets on the left.
-
Install Themes
- Help text for search field
- Help text for āFeature Filterā
-
Themes – Custom Header
- Help text simply stating you can upload files from you computer
-
Manage Plugins
- Description of what plugins are and that they are activated/deactivated on that page
- Text indicating that broken plugins can be renamed to remove them from being active
- Description of the āRecently Active Pluginsā section
-
Add New Plugins
- Help text for search field
- Help text for āPopular Tagsā
-
Users – Your Profile
- Help text for āBiographical Infoā
- Help text for āSessionsā
-
Tools
- Description paragraphs for āPress Thisā
-
Tools – Import
- Description paragraph for āImportā
-
Tools – Export
- Description paragraphs for āExportā
-
Settings – General
- Extra help text after input fields for āTaglineā, āSite Address (URL)ā, āEmail Addressā, āTimezoneā
-
Settings – Writing
- Label for āUpdate Servicesā
-
Settings – Reading
- Extra description for āSearch engine visibilityā
-
Settings – Discussion
- Description of what avatars are
- Description of purpose of default avatar
-
Settings – Media
- Text that explains sizes represent maximum dimensions in pixels of images uploaded to Media Library
-
Settings – Permalinks
- Help text about āCommon Settingsā
- Help text about āOptionalā
-
Settings – Privacy
- Paragraphs of text describing the Privacy Policy page
NOTE: This plugin does NOT remove input field labels or section headers, nor anything containing actual data. In a few cases, descriptive text is left intact when it is of enough importance to warrant retention, or the markup structure does not facilitate easy removal.
Links: Plugin Homepage | Plugin Directory Page | GitHub | Author Homepage
Developer Documentation
Developer documentation can be found in DEVELOPER-DOCS.md. That documentation covers the hooks provided by the plugin.
As an overview, these are the hooks provided by the plugin:
c2c_admin_expert_mode
: Filter to dynamically determine whether the admin expert mode should be active.c2c_admin_expert_mode_default
: Filter to customize whether admin expert mode should be active for users by default or not.
Screenshots
A screenshot of some of the panels of the āEdit Postā admin page after this plugin is activated. A screenshot of the same panels of the āEdit Postā admin page as they appear in a standard WP 3.3 installation. See the difference? A screenshot of the plugin’s profile checkbox on the user Profile page. A screenshot of the form on the āCategoriesā admin page after this plugin is activated. A screenshot of the form on the āCategoriesā admin page as they appear in a standard WP 3.3 installation. See the difference?
Installation
- Install via the built-in WordPress plugin installer. Or install the plugin code inside the plugins directory for your site (typically
/wp-content/plugins/
). - Activate the plugin through the āPluginsā admin menu in WordPress
- Each user who wishes to enable expert mode for themselves must do so individually by going into their profile, checking the checkbox āExpert modeā, and then pressing the āUpdate Profileā button.
FAQ
-
Can I view an admin page with admin expert mode turned off without turning the feature off for my account or disabling the plugin entirely?
-
Yes. Use the ādisable-admin-expert-modeā query parameter with a value of ā1ā to disable admin expert mode for the loaded page. This would yield a URL, for example, of
https://example.com/wp-admin/options-general.php?disable-admin-expert-mode=1
. If the URL already has query parameters specified (you’ll see a ā?ā in the URL), then you have to add the new query parameter as an additional one joined with ā&ā, e.g.https://example.com/wp-admin/post-new.php?post_type=page&disable-admin-expert-mode=1
. -
Does this plugin include unit tests?
-
Yes.
Reviews
Contributors & Developers
“Admin Expert Mode” is open source software. The following people have contributed to this plugin.
Contributors“Admin Expert Mode” has been translated into 1 locale. Thank you to the translators for their contributions.
Translate “Admin Expert Mode” into your language.
Interested in development?
Browse the code, check out the SVN repository, or subscribe to the development log by RSS.
Changelog
2.9 (2021-11-16)
Highlights:
This minor release adds DEVELOPER-DOCS.md, notes compatibility through WP 5.8+, reorganizes unit tests, and minor tweaks.
Details:
- New: Add DEVELOPER-DOCS.md and move hooks documentation into it
- Change: Add newlines after output block tags and remove newline after label tag
- Change: Add translator comments to explain placeholders
- Change: Use stricter equality check in a conditional statement
- Change: Tweak inline function documentation (typo, verb tenses, bullet list syntax)
- Change: Tweak installation instruction
- Change: Note compatibility through WP 5.8+
- Change: Change a tag in readme.txt header
- Unit tests:
- Change: Use stricter regex in a couple tests
- Change: Restructure unit test file structure
- Change: Move
tests/test-*
intotests/phpunit/tests/
- Change: Move
tests/bootstrap.php
totests/phpunit/
- Change: Move
bin/
intophpunit/
- Change: Move
- Change: In bootstrap, store path to plugin file constant so its value can be used within that file and in test file
- Change: In bootstrap, add backcompat for PHPUnit pre-v6.0
- Change: Remove ātest-ā prefix from unit test files
- Change: Rename
phpunit.xml
tophpunit.xml.dist
per best practices
- New: Add a few more possible TODO items
2.8 (2021-03-24)
Highlights:
This release is a recommended minor update that hides text in the welcome panel on the dashboard page, hides text on the āSettings – Writingā and āSettings – Readingā pages, and notes compatibility through WP 5.7+.
Details:
- New: Hide the description of the dashboard’s welcome panel
- New: Hide the label for the āUpdate Servicesā on the āSettings – Writingā page
- New: Hide the extra description for the āSearch engine visibilityā on the āSettings – Readingā page
- Fix: Fix typo in plugin description
- Change: Note compatibility through WP 5.7+
- Change: Update copyright date (2021)
2.7 (2020-06-14)
Highlights:
This release is a recommended minor update that updates hiding of text on āPrivacy Settingsā page, hides text on āMedia Settingsā page, hides text relating to avatars on āDiscussion Settingā page, adds a TODO.md file, updates a few URLs to be HTTPS, expands unit testing, and notes compatibility through WP 5.4+.
Details:
- New: Hide the descriptions of what avatars and default avatars are on the āDiscussion Settingsā page
- New: Hide the intro paragraph for the āMedia Settingsā page
- New: Add TODO.md and move existing TODO list from top of main plugin file into it
- Fix: Re-hide descriptive paragraphs for āPrivacy Settingsā page
- Change: Note compatibility through WP 5.4+
- Change: Update links to coffee2code.com to be HTTPS
- Unit tests:
- Change: Enhance
test_default_hooks()
to support testing for direct function callbacks rather than just method callbacks - Change: Remove unnecessary unregistering of hooks
- Change: Use HTTPS for link to WP SVN repository in bin script for configuring unit tests (and delete commented-out code)
- Change: Enhance