Halcyon Admin — Reduced Motion & Resizable Sidebar

Halcyon Admin tunes the WordPress admin for people who prefer a steady, low-distraction workspace. It doesn’t add a settings page, a dashboard widget, or a notice — it just changes three things wp-admin does by default, and gets out of the way.

What it does

• Resizable admin menu — drag the right edge of the left menu to resize; width is saved per user and honored by the block editor.
• Reduced motion by default — disables CSS transitions, jQuery animations, and the WordPress 7 view transitions for users who haven’t opted in. Honors prefers-reduced-motion.
• Sensible color default — sets the admin color scheme to Fresh until a user picks their own on the profile screen. No “pick a color that doesn’t burn my retinas” first-run.

All preferences are per-user and stored as user meta. There is no global settings page, no telemetry, and no external network calls.

Why “Halcyon”?

Halcyon means calm and peaceful. The plugin’s only job is to make wp-admin feel that way — without forcing choices on users who like it the way it is.

Must-use install

To load Halcyon Admin as a must-use plugin (no activation needed, no update prompts):

1. Copy the halcyon-admin/ folder to wp-content/mu-plugins/halcyon-admin/.

2. Create a new file at wp-content/mu-plugins/halcyon-admin-loader.php containing:

   <?php
   /**

   • Plugin Name: Halcyon Admin (mu-plugin loader)
   • Description: Loads Halcyon Admin from a mu-plugins subdirectory.
     */

   defined( ‘ABSPATH’ ) || exit;

   require_once DIR . ‘/halcyon-admin/halcyon-admin.php’;

Halcyon Admin will be loaded automatically on every request and won’t appear in the Plugins screen.