New WordPress Plugin: Clutter Free
Many people have told me that there are portions of the WordPress posting interface that they never use. Even when collapsed, these sections can take up significant room. My new plugin, Clutter Free aims to fix that. Using this plugin, you can eliminate several portions of the posting interface, including:
- Categories
- Comment Status (”Discussion”)
- Post Password
- Post Slug
- Post Status
- Post Timestamp
- Post Author
- Optional Excerpt
- Image Upload
- Quicktags
- Bookmarklet
- Footer
These settings are stored for each user, so every author on your blog can have his or her own customized interface.
For an extreme example, check out this shot with everything removed. (The section on the right is something I developed… see here for more info.)

Clutter Free requires WordPress 2.0.5 or 2.1 (works with these builds as of September 26th, 2006). You can use it with 2.0.4, but there are several sections that you won’t be able to hide, because they didn’t have distinctive CSS IDs in 2.0.4
[...] WP Plugin: Clutter Free Strip down the WordPress posting interface to the bare necessities with this plugin from Mark Jaquith. Bookmark:These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages. [...]
[...] WP Plugin: Clutter Free Strip down the WordPress posting interface to the bare necessities with this plugin from Mark Jaquith. [...]
Clutter Free - jedem User sein Admininterface
Mit diesem WordPress Plugin kann jeder user seinen Adminbereich beim Beitrag schreiben gestalten. Clutter Free - ein WP Plugin das aufräumt, hier auf deutsch.
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Sounds great, it’s a practical plugin because it does what alot of us need. I’ll wait till WP 2.1 reaches us and then use it.
Same here, I’ll wait for 2.1 before installing it.
I think it will be better if there is an option where only the admins can change the settings for multi-user blogs and not on a per author basis (and also saving database space). Or maybe it’s another plugin.
This is what I was waiting for,… I will try.
[...] New WordPress Plugin: Clutter Free « Mark on WordPress “[Clutter Free] aims to fix that. Using this plugin, you can eliminate several portions of the posting interface[…].” (tags: WordPress plugin streamline clutter write interface) [...]
Aaron,
Right now it’s just a cosmetic change. If it was an admin forbidding, I’d have to take steps to actually disable the hidden sections, so that a user couldn’t work around it. Maybe for version 2.
I thought about adding that, but it would have been a lot more coding.
And the plugin works on 2.0.5, which should be out in a few weeks.
[...] WordPress Plugin: Clutter Free Using this plugin, you can eliminate several portions of the posting interface (tags: wordpress plugin) [...]
Is it easy to toggle between the “clutter free” and “cluttered” versions?
Mr Angry,
You could just disable/enable the plugin. That’d do it. Two clicks to do that.
[...] WP Plugin: Clutter Free Strip down the WordPress posting interface to the bare necessities with this plugin from Mark Jaquith. [...]
[...] Clutter Free will finally rid you of any of the un-wanted options the WordPress Dashboard provides. Most blog users probably won’t use half of the functions that are available for WordPress, and these functions only get in the way. This plugin will strip WordPress down to the bare minimum, allowing quick and easy blogging. [...]
[...] Tired of a cluttered Write Post panel in your WordPress Administration Panels? Mark Jaquith has created the Clutter Free WordPress Plugin just for you. [...]
Ill wait for a while begore i use it on my wordpress blog. Keep up the good work!
[...] New WordPress Plugin: Clutter Free « Mark on WordPress (tags: wordpress) [...]
[...] Mas o que me deixou mais impressionado foram as novidades previstas para a versão 2.1, a nova tela de administração que pode ser, quase que, totalmente reformulada por CSS e a definição de categorias usando Ajax, são simplesmente impressionantes. [...]
[...] Clutter Free [...]
[...] Clutter Free Vois permet de ramener l’interface d’écriture de WordPress au plus petit dénominateur commun, et nécessaire! [...]
[...] Clutter Free [...]
Is there a way to use this to allow members of the public to post articles that automatically go to “draft” so a Admin can authorise later?
Great plugin — it is working well on 2.0.5. Is there anyway to have all the panels disabled by default? I’ve modified the plugin so that “Post Preview” can’t be disabled, but I’d like for everything else NOT to be visible until manually enabled by the user (the opposite of how it is now).
It seems like there would be a quick way to add this functionality into the plugin, but I’ve spent 2 hours on it so far and have yet to find it!
[...] This is kind of a hack (and only works in the upcoming 2.0.5 version) but I’m happy finally to have some control over the posting controls in WordPress. If you want the same control, grab Clutter-free, by Mark Jaquith. [...]
Same question as sam :
This plugin is great ! But I would like other users to have a default setup with fewer panels… There should be an easy way to do that ?
[...] Clutter Free will finally rid you of any of the un-wanted options the WordPress Dashboard provides. Most blog users probably won’t use half of the functions that are available for WordPress, and these functions only get in the way. This plugin will strip WordPress down to the bare minimum, allowing quick and easy blogging. [...]
Great plugin. Any chance of implementing the default behavior of a clean write screen as requested by folks in this comment thread?
[...] New WordPress Plugin: Clutter Free « Mark on WordPress [...]