Drupal 7: Simplify

The Drupal Simplify Module is a big help removing cruft from the eyes of the administrator in the Drupal UI.  Simplify allows you to hide certain fields from the user interface on a global basis, or configured for each node type, taxonomy, block, comment, or user.

What sent me looking for a module like this was the "Text Format" selection beneath every single WYSIWYG on the site.  While I think Drupal is incredible for allowing multiple input formats, 99 out of 100 times, I define which ONE input format a user can use per role.  So having this as an option beneath every rich text editor on the site just became wasted space that I wanted to remove.  And so I did!

But wait, there's more!  Simplify lets you hide so much more than that!  The following items can be hidden:

  • Administrative overlay (Users)
  • Authoring information
  • Book outline
  • Comment settings
  • Contact settings (Users)
  • Menu settings
  • Publishing options
  • Relations (Taxonomy)
  • Revision information
  • Text format selection
  • URL alias (Taxonomy)
  • URL path settings
  • Meta tags
  • URL redirects
  • XML sitemap

Install Simplify for Drupal 7

  • Install Simplify 
    drush dl -y simplify
  • Activate Simplify 
    drush en -y simplify
  • Set permissions for the module at /admin/people/permissions
  • Configure global Simplify configs at /admin/config/user-interface/simplify
    Simplify Module Configuration Screen
  • Visit each Content Type that you want to configure to customize.
    Simplify Module Node Configuration
  • Repeat for each Node type, and Taxonomy Vocabulary you would like to customize.

That's all there is to it.  The hard part is going to be defining what your users need to see on each add/edit screen, and what they can live without.  I ofter err on the side of hiding as much as I can, and adding back in as things get requested.  The easier we can make the administrators job, the better!