Admin Columns vs Zero Blocks Given

Admin Columns lets you customize and organize the columns displayed in the WordPress admin list tables for posts, pages, users, comments and media. Instead of the limited default list table, you get to display the information you actually need – like custom fields, featured images, taxonomies, file data and more. Trusted by 100,000+ WordPress sites worldwide. With a simple drag-and-drop interface you can: Add any column to posts, pages, users, media and comments Reorder and resize columns to match your workflow Choose from 200+ column types including custom fields, taxonomies and file data Display rich metadata such as images, dates, colors and relational fields Create clean overviews for even the most complex websites It works for any site from simple blogs to large WooCommerce stores. Why Admin Columns? Default WordPress list tables are limited. They often show only the title, author and date. Admin Columns turns them into useful management screens that show you what matters. Examples: See featured images, custom fields and taxonomies directly in the post list table Display media file size, dimensions or EXIF data View user metadata and roles in the users screen Keep track of large content libraries Popular use cases Admin Columns is used by developers, agencies and site owners to manage content more efficiently. Common setups: Managing WooCommerce products with price, SKU or stock columns Displaying ACF custom fields in post list tables Organizing large media libraries Reviewing SEO metadata from Yoast Organizing custom post types with the right columns Built for developers Admin Columns is open source and built to be extended. Use actions and filters to register custom column types, modify output or integrate with your own plugins. Full hooks and filters reference for custom integrations Register column configurations in PHP for version-controlled setups Designed to work alongside page builders, custom post type plugins and third-party extensions Explore the developer documentation. Admin Columns Pro Upgrade to Admin Columns Pro for sorting, filtering, inline editing and more. With Pro you can: Sort any column Filter content with stackable smart filters Inline editing – edit titles, custom fields, taxonomies and more directly from the list table Bulk editing – update multiple items at once Conditional formatting – color-code rows and cells based on rules Export to CSV Import/export column sets between sites or team members Save to PHP for version-controlled column configurations Admin Columns Pro also provides deep integrations with popular plugins: Advanced Custom Fields – display and edit all field types WooCommerce – product and order columns Yoast SEO – SEO score and metadata columns Toolset Types – custom fields and relationships Pods – Pods fields and content types Learn more about the additional features of Admin Columns Pro on our website: Upgrade to Admin Columns Pro Supported content types Admin Columns works with the following WordPress admin screens: Posts, Pages and Custom Post Types Users Media Library Comments Taxonomies (Pro) Custom field column Admin Columns allows you to display custom fields (post meta and user meta) directly in the admin list table. Supported field formats include: Color Date Images Number Text URL True/False Relational: Posts, Users and Media Docs & Support Is this your first time using Admin Columns? Check out our documentation and guides: Documentation Getting Started Developer documentation Need help? Please visit the Admin Columns support forums. Contribute Admin Columns is open source and community-driven. There are several ways to contribute: Translate: Help translate Admin Columns on WordPress.org or Pro translations on Transifex Report issues: Found a bug? Report it on GitHub Suggest features: Submit ideas to our public roadmap

Most WooCommerce stores ship 80-150 KB of block CSS and JS that the store never actually renders. The WC BlockPatterns scanner is the one that bugs me most – it hits the filesystem on every request to scan a directory of pattern templates you don’t use. Then add core WP global-styles, wp-block-library and font-faces on top, and you’re loading a Gutenberg frontend you probably switched off a long time ago. Zero Blocks Given turns it off at the source, through WooCommerce’s own dependency injection container. No CSS dequeue band-aid, no UI checkboxes, no PRO upsell. One constant in wp-config.php, pick a tier, done. How it works Here’s the thing – WC registers its block hooks as closures wrapping instance methods on container-managed objects. So you can’t remove_action() them by string. You have to fetch the same instance back from the DI container and pass it in as the callable. That’s what this does: $bp = \Automattic\WooCommerce\Blocks\Package::container()->get( BlockPatterns::class ); remove_action( 'init', [ $bp, 'register_block_patterns' ] ); The DI-container path is the one that survives WC upgrades cleanly. String-callback matching and dequeue tricks tend to drift every release, so I went with the container. Four modes. Three ways to set them. Mode What it turns off When to use it patterns WC BlockPatterns directory scanner only Block-based Cart/Checkout – keeps all blocks rendering, just skips the file-I/O scan blocks patterns + BlockTypesController + Notices styles + wc-blocks-style handle Classic-shortcode WC stores all blocks + WP global-styles pipeline + theme.json + font-faces + head strip Sites with no Gutenberg frontend at all nuclear all + unregister_block_type() for every core block Page-builder sites – strips the editor inserter clean Default is all. Set the mode you want with any of these: The settings – click the Settings link on the Plugins screen. Native HTML dialog, four radios, save. No menu items, nothing else added to your admin. A constant in wp-config.php – define( 'ZEROBLG_MODE', 'patterns' );. This wins over the dialog. Good devops escape hatch. A filter in a theme or mu-plugin – add_filter( 'zeroblg/mode', fn() => 'blocks' );. Used when neither the constant nor the dialog set a value. Resolution order: constant, then settings, then filter, then all. An invalid value at any step just falls through to the next. A few real cases Service-form site on WC. You sell consultations, not products – no cart, no checkout. mode=all strips every block stylesheet across the site. Classic-shortcode WC store. You use [woocommerce_cart] and [woocommerce_checkout], no block UI. mode=blocks turns off the block frontend without touching your classic flow. Block-checkout store with bloated patterns. You run the new Cart/Checkout blocks but never the WC pattern library. mode=patterns skips just the directory scanner – saves the disk hit, leaves your checkout alone. FrankenPHP / worker mode. All hooks are idempotent, no $GLOBALS writes, \Throwable catches around the DI lookups. Safe in a worker. Elementor / Divi WC stores. The page builder renders its own checkout, so mode=all clears the WC and WP block CSS your theme never uses anyway. Why I built it this way Activate it and it works – mode=all is the default, no setup needed. No settings page to learn. One constant or one filter is the whole API. Pure PHP. No database rows, no admin scripts, no frontend JS. No external requests, no tracking, nothing phoning home. GDPR is a non-issue. It uses the same Package::container() lookup as WC core, so it follows WC’s own object lifecycle instead of guessing. Worker-safe – FrankenPHP, Roadrunner, Swoole. No die, no exit, no session writes. mu-plugin friendly. Drop the folder into wp-content/mu-plugins/ and it loads itself. GPL, no upsells. No PRO tier, no Freemius, no admin notice nagging you for a review. From the maker of WP Multitool This plugin handles the frontend block bloat. If you also want the backend cleaned up, that’s what WP Multitool does – slow queries, autoload bloat, the database bottlenecks that caching plugins just hide instead of fixing. Most optimization plugins guess at the problem. WP Multitool runs EXPLAIN and shows you. 14 tools in there – slow-query analyzer, autoload optimizer, index suggestions, fatal-error recovery – and a free site scanner if you want to see what’s slow before paying for anything. If Zero Blocks Given earned a spot in your stack, that one probably will too.