For hardline Luddite editing!
Feebleline removes the modeline and replaces it with a slimmer proxy version, which displays some basic information in the echo area instead. This information is only displayed if the echo area is not used for anything else (but if you switch frame/window, it will replace whatever message is currently displayed).
NOTE: feebleline.el will look considerably better with the following settings:
(window-divider-mode t)
(setq window-divider-default-bottom-width 1)
(setq window-divider-default-places (quote bottom-only))
But this mode does not work for all EMACS versions and may not work with terminal EMACS (but I haven't checked). If you're on GUI EMACS and your version supports it, just place the following in your init file:
(feebleline-default-settings)
Otherwise, do (feebleline-mode t) instead, but be warned that I'm not sure if it will look good.
Screenshot:
