Remove the "edit" link from each plugin row on the Plugins screen

[johnbillion]

Some very unscientific user testing last week led me to notice an inexperienced user who clicked the Edit link next to a plugin when they were looking for its settings panel. They subsequently spent around a minute on this screen before deciding that they weren't in the right place.

Should the Edit link in each plugin row be removed? It will reduce clutter on the Plugins screen, and the plugin and theme editors are still available from their respective Editor menus.

One disadvantage is the lack of visibility of the plugin editor which is a potential springboard for getting users into development (one of the arguments against removing the editors completely).

Note that the Themes screen no longer shows an Edit link anywhere since 3.8.

[wbcomdesigns]

Hi @johnbillion

For your site specific
You can add following codes inside Child Theme's function.php

add_filter('plugin_action_links', 'disable_plugin_edit', 10, 4);

function disable_plugin_edit($actions, $plugin_file, $plugin_data, $context) {
    // Remove edit link for all
    if (array_key_exists('edit', $actions)) {
        unset($actions['edit']);
    }
    return $actions;
}

[afercia]

+1
@johnbillion or you could also consider to remove it from your site with that filter 😆

[DrewAPicture]

+1 for removing the edit links for plugins.

[subharanjan]

+1 for removing the edit link from plugins listing screen.

[dd32]

I don't personally see the edit functionality as being useful to the majority of WordPress users, so also agree that it's removal (and from Themes if it's there, but i'm fairly sure it's not) would be a better UX for the majority of users.

[johnbillion]

Let's do this.

[johnbillion]

38169.patch​ removes the Edit link from everywhere that they're present for plugins and themes:

• The Plugins screen
• The Plugins screen in Network Admin
• The Themes screen in Network Admin
• The Themes screen when editing a site in Network Admin

[afercia]

+1 from me.

[johnbillion]

In 41160:

Administration: Remove Edit links from all plugin listing screens and the remaining theme listing screens.

This simplifies these list tables, reducing user confusion, without removing functionality.

Fixes #38169

[DrewAPicture]

Can we get changelog entries on the DocBlocks for the theme_action_links and network_admin_plugin_action_links filters? I think anybody expecting the 'edit' values to be there are going to come looking and it would be good to document the change.

[johnbillion]

In 41231:

Plugins: Correct and improve docblocks for the various plugin_action_links filters on the Plugins screen.

This also adds a changelog for the removal of the Edit links in [41160].

See #41017
Fixes #38169