Conceiving Widgets 2.0
The WordPress Widgets plugin was released almost a year ago and we have learned a lot in those months: its strengths and weaknesses, its limitations, its quirks. A year is a long time to go without any major upgrades so I hope to deliver the next major version in the next few months.
Leave your comments for Widgets 1.x and your ideas for Widgets 2.0 on this post and I’ll do my best to condense this nebula into a star.
February 14, 2007 at 5:43 am
My major complaint is that it tends to not scale well when there are (a) lots of repeated widgets (”Text 1″, “Text 2″, “Text 3″ are not that intuitive a month or so later) OR when more than one sidebar is defined (LOTS of side to side scrolling, even at 1024×768, sometimes involving dropping widgets into one sidebar, scrolling the window, “picking” the widget back up, continuing the drag…
Other than these two scalability issues, I think the widget system is absolutely fantastic.
February 14, 2007 at 8:37 am
Some clear documentation for how to localize widgets would be very much appreciated. As a widget author, people keep reporting bugs that are due to localization issues.
Given most widgets support a title attribute, it might be nice to see the title below the name of the widget. So you might see “Text 1″ and then “About Me”, “Text 2″ and then “Static Content”, etc.
There’s still a lot of API work that can be done within WordPress to better support widgets doing things differently than people initially intended. Why can’t you pass “type=link” to wp_dropdown_categories(), for example? Instead, I had to reinvent the wheel.
February 14, 2007 at 9:07 am
check out Nybble’s “Side-Bar Modules” [SBM] plugin. it’s got serves up every sort of widget you’ll need.
http://nybblelabs.org.uk/projects/sidebar-modules/
February 14, 2007 at 1:30 pm
-nod- @ alan.
the whole point of widgets is to replace the need for end users to learn how to use those php templates from the codex. i know you guys have been trying to remove some options from the dashboard, but those options should find their way into the widgets.
E.G.: the links widget should now have all of the options for wp_list_bookmarks(); since the link manager no longer has those options. widget opotions don’t show up unless a user goes looking for them, so it’s the perfect place for them. and yeah, drop down categories, drop down links, etc.
and yes, titles for multiple widgets
also, it would be great if more of the widgets had the option to only show on is_single(), is_page(), etc.
February 14, 2007 at 6:22 pm
I have been trying to add my own custom little Widgets however with upgrading to 2.1 i have been running into a load of issues namely some widgets will cause the Blog to load very slowly to not at all and most times places a massive load on the server.
I have followed everything to the dot on the automattic.com website and yet i have found no solutions to this problem.
Anyone got any idea’s ?
February 16, 2007 at 9:22 am
Much more reconfigurability for the archives, links, and categories widgets. Tag cloud widget. Allow re-arranging and exclusion in the pages widget.
February 16, 2007 at 12:27 pm
Multiple instances of the same widget would be great. It’s real nice to be able to assign different sidebars to entirely different pages. But without hacking in multiple instances, it doesn’t work if you want, say, a flickr widget on each of those pages.
February 17, 2007 at 7:04 pm
http://nybblelabs.org.uk/projects/sidebar-modules/ is my suggestion… please merge both systems, and i think everybody will be in heaven !!!
February 18, 2007 at 7:00 pm
I’d love it if more of the original WP template tags were exposed in default widgets like Categories, Pages, and so on. I’d like to be able to configure a Categories widget to show X listings, and only the child listings of category Y, but not categories A, B, C
February 20, 2007 at 4:32 am
I’d Like to see a dynamic text widget that refreshes at a set (in options) interval. Would be useful for delivering xml data from other sources.
February 22, 2007 at 9:34 pm
I’d like to see a page template that works with all themes that can contain widgets.
Instead of having top posts in my side bar, I could have top posts on a page in my page hierarchy.
February 24, 2007 at 1:12 am
The fading effects etc get really irritating after a while. It is cool when you are looking it the first few times, but eventually it just gets in the way. It would be nice if there was an option to turn them off.
It would also be great if you could use two of the same widget whether the widget author creates an option or not.
February 24, 2007 at 5:05 am
It’s be great if we could have multiples widget sidebars. Categories, pages, posts, archive — the sidebar could change depending on what template you’re using.
February 27, 2007 at 10:33 am
What we need is expand/collapse for each link category separately. It allows people to choose what link categories are open and what are closed. It also stores these selections in a cookie. We can set the default status to open/closed and the user has right to override. This expand/collapse feature saves a tremendous amount of sidebar space, and makes the blog much much easier to read. I hope that this feature will be a default option for Widgets #2. Expand/collapse for whole widgets would be equally welcome. Just give us a control panel where we can set the defaults for each widget, and each category inside widget.
We have done this by merging Widgets with the “JavaScript Toggle Box” code from here: http://aranea.zuavra.net/index.php/19/ Making it happen, required a complete rewrite of the tiny code fragment comprising the links widget, but it was very much worth it.
February 27, 2007 at 10:37 am
Another thing: You have probably seen “Widget Works” and “Sidebar modules” (install pending…). We are using that Widgetworks plugin to great success and already dreaming of Sidebar modules. We want that functionality. We want to rename our widgets, for example. It would be wonderfull to have all those features - and more - in Widgets.
February 27, 2007 at 10:40 am
Please use as much as possible standard built-in WordPress functions that work well with other plugins such as access control plugins (like Category Visibility, Rolemanager, Post levels, …
and with internationalization plugins (like as Gengo).
February 27, 2007 at 10:47 am
“E.G.: the links widget should now have all of the options for wp_list_bookmarks(); since the link manager no longer has those options.”
YEEEEEES
February 27, 2007 at 10:55 am
Our Archives list is growing at a pace of 30 posts per month. As our organization is planning on using WordPress “indefinitely”, the archives will grow looooooong.
We would thus like to have drop down archives:
Chronological archives
================
CHOOSE YEAR –> [ALL|CHOOSE MONTH] –> [ALL|CHOOSE CATEGORY]
Category archives
=============
CHOOSE CATEGORY –> [ALL|CHOOSE YEAR] –> [ALL|MONTH]
Obviously, each new sublist should beging with “All” and then a separator and more choices.
Open submenu at hover, open currently active selection (under mouse) on click.
A non-javascript alternative needs to be provided too, for compatibility.
February 27, 2007 at 11:02 am
Ha! I’ll flood your blog with comments.
The separate login screen in WordPress 2.0.7 is a major cause of irritation. It would really belong to the sidebar. A login/logout widget with username-password support and OpenId support (there’s a plugin for that allready) is on our wishlist. AND a link that dynamically displays either “show dashboard” or “view site”, if priviledges permit.
If this compromises security in any way, forget this idea.
February 27, 2007 at 11:19 am
Some people want drop down links and may indeed benefit from such an interface. We do NOT. We actually want to display some links (with link images!) on a list. So, please make both a collapsible link list, AND drop down links for those that need such.
February 28, 2007 at 3:18 am
I’ll add another vote for conditional widgets — I currently hide my “recent posts” widget on the home page via CSS — but it’d be nice to not have it generated in the first place.
February 28, 2007 at 3:57 pm
WYSIWYG/Ajax editing for text boxes (and a button to add an image to a text box).
Adding Linkblock type functionality, letting us pick categories of links to show.
otherwise, much
February 28, 2007 at 10:26 pm
One-click installation of widgets (like Blogger and TypePad). Even the installation of a plugin is intimidating to the average blogger.
March 7, 2007 at 7:00 am
Have it included with the wordpress download!
March 7, 2007 at 5:53 pm
Really full multilanguage support for box title, etc.
March 8, 2007 at 3:14 am
Here’s a simple and usable suggestion.
With blog entries growing, it’ll be great if there is an option to display past entries/archives/entries by category in a list with their titles only. It’ll be much easier for readers to browse past entries without excessive page scrolling.
The ‘Next’ and ‘Previous’ page scrolling can still be retained as different people has different preferences.
Btw, WP widgets are heaven-sent! Keep it up!
March 8, 2007 at 7:52 pm
A lot of what I’m reading here are excellent features for actual widgets. I hope widget developers are listening!
These suggestions are aimed at the widget plugin itself: 1. A widget’s settings ought to be editable from its box in the “Available Widgets” gallery. 2. I find the drag and drop to and from “Available Widgets” and “Sidebar Arrangement” to be a hassle, especially since they drag so far when you have more than a couple rows. This needs to be re-imagined. Maybe “click-click” rather than “click-hold-drag-scroll-drag-oops-click-hold-drag-scroll-drag-release”. 3. Widgets should be included in the default WP installation. (It bears repeating.) 4. I’d like the option to sort plugins on the “Plugin Management” page by whether or not they contain a widget. 5. Please continue to avoid using any sort of pop-up windows.
March 23, 2007 at 12:51 am
Can you elaborate on the difference between developing a widget VS a plug-in?
We have an idea for functionality to add to WPress — but Im wondering…should it be a widget? or should it be a plug-in. Can you tell us the benefits or either or limiations of either when preparing to develop something?
March 27, 2007 at 7:33 am
The Widgets should definitely be part of the WordPress download in stead of being a separate plugin. Any idea when?
March 29, 2007 at 4:14 pm
Great plug-in! Great idea! It really helps people to take ownership of their blogs, which is really lacking in so many blogs. People just dont know how to improve their blogs, and widgets really make it more accessible.
Infact we started using it on the blogs at NYTimes.com blogs. However we did have to make quite a few modifications to it. The current configuration only allows for one possible sidebar, we have 3 different sidebar views. It would be good to allow for multiple sidebars.
May 1, 2007 at 11:31 am
I’m a theme developer. One of my biggest gripes with the stock widget plugin is the inability to lose the h2 tag in the text widgets without hacking the widget plugin, but that shuts them off for ALL text widgets.
Most people who use the text widgets want to use them for ads and such. If I style the h2 tags in themes to do fun visual stuff, and we use the stock widget plugin and don’t want a headline for a specific ad block, what happens is the h2 tag shows up empty and the styling shows up also, even though we didn’t want it there. Not good. So it would be great if there was an option for each text widget to turn the h2 off. It would also be great to have this same option on Pages widget block.
There’s also a gotcha with text widgets in another way. If you populate a text widget then decide you need more text widgets, and go into admin and create them you currently LOSE the data in the ones you already created. Not good. I haven’t tried this with the rss widgets to see if there is the same problem, since I don’t use those as extensively. A way to back up or save that data or at the very least a warning in admin that people should back up the db before making changes there would lessen some headbanging.
Some of my layouts require, for instance, a horizontal nav up top with Pages. It would be nice for a developer to be able to remove the Pages widget from the lineup if that one is already hardwired in. Ditto Search.
Categories– we would LOVE to see more flexibility in the tagging there! And possibly more than one category widget, so they can be split between different areas. Same goes for the links and link categories.
Basically, the tradeoff I’m always fighting between using widgets and not using widgets is that I can’t use custom template tags that specify, for instance, a certain sort order, no headline, and excluding a category or page, but in exchange for that lack of flexibility, I give flexibility to the client in other ways. If you could figure out a way to give us devs some of that custom tag functionality back, that would be great.
September 26, 2007 at 11:34 am
Move away from “Sidebar Widgets” and to “Widgets” in general.
Many, many people use widgets to control content in general rather than just their sidebar.
For example, can you imagine an entirely widgetized theme? You could control the layout of the theme, what order post details are shown in, etc.
The admin page also need to be redesigned to better handle more widget… panes? as well as widgets themselves.