WordPress Multi-Widget Class

[dancole]

Creating multi-use widgets is a pain... Good news is though, that WordPress 2.8 will adopt the WordPress Multi-Widget Class into core. This means creating multi-use widgets will become a breeze!

I don't think adopt was the right word. I've looked through the new core WordPress code and it does have its differences, but it is a step forward, just a different step that what I though it would be. The WordPress ticket that got this going was: http://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/8441 and the new code can be found throughout: http://core.trac.wordpress.org/brows...es/widgets.php

Since WordPress 2.7 didn't have this feature, I added this feature to my theme. I've created 6 multi-use widgets with the submitted code and I can tell you it's great. I guess I'm going to have to re-align with WordPress, however, for WordPress 2.8.

[Jeffro]

Does this mean that only widgets which have been designed with this class in mind can be used multiple times? It doesn't affect ALL widgets?

[dancole]

Does this mean that only widgets which have been designed with this class in mind can be used multiple times? It doesn't affect ALL widgets?

Only widgets that have been designed for this class. If you look a particular widget's real name or even one of the classes it has, multi-use widgets will have a name such as text-375929151, while single-use widgets will have a name like calendar.

It wouldn't be impossible to develop a WordPress function to convert single-use widgets into multi-use widgets, but I don't see WordPress developing it. There are people who see value in widgets that can only be used once...

It's also not a class. The submitted code was, but they changed it around. It may make it more complex to understand at first, but it gets rid of some code.

[Jeffro]

I heard about this ticket again today and it looks like all of the default widgets will have the multi class attached to it so we can use more than one category widget if we choose to do so.

http://wpdevel.wordpress.com/2009/03...to-the-new-wi/

[itsananderson]

I really wonder why these weren't multi widgets already!

Glad to see this kind of thing moving forward though. It's a great step for WordPress as a CMS!

[Jeffro]

But if I remember correctly, weren't most of the widgets multi classed already in WordPress 2.3? I could have sworn widgets came with a drop down to select how many instances of the widgets you wanted.

[itsananderson]

I think there were a couple of them that were/are. Maybe they made some of them single widgets when they were multi-widgets. I was just getting into WordPress around 2.3, so I can't remember.

[andrea_r]

Only some of them, like the text widget, allowed multiples. Just a few extra lines, really.

[ptahdunbar]

You guys should try out this free tool called widgetifyr (http://www.widgetifyr.com/) that allows you create widgets on the fly. It can generate the legacy style widgets or using the new class base approach.

[williamsba]

I'm really looking forward to this update. Just today I used aplugin to allow me to duplicate widgets on a site. I need to dig into this code and get familiar with it before 2.8 comes out!