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A New Widget Clarity

Now I have given it a little though I can see clearly what I have to do to fit the Widgets into WP-Andreas09 and retain compatibility with other add on Widgets. That is as long as the widget author follows the standard WordPress markup - which I think most will do. This is important because it make more sense to make a “recent comments” Widget that it does to make a plug-in and there must be a lot of cases where sidebar content is generated by a plug-in that will sooner or later become a Widget.

What I think I need to do is:

  • Convert the sidebars to standard WordPress markup using nestled unordered lists.
  • Recode and style the Categories and Archives so that they will display as they do now but using the WP standard markup.
  • Create custom widgets for the Categories, Archive, Subscribe and Meta sections in the same way as they are displayed now.

Another option here is to also create a custom pages widget so that they also display buttons if used in a sidebar like the Categories and Archives, although there doesn’t seem to be much point in pages being in the sidebar as well the horizontal menu.

So far so good or at least it is easily said and yet has to be done but I don’t think it will be a big issue.

Just the naming of the sidebars to sort out and I should be there. ;-) All I really want to do is make the name of the sidebar appear on the widgets option page. That is “Left-Sidebar”, Right-Sidebar” and “Alternate Right-Sidebar”, nothing complicated.

Has anyone seen a theme that renames the sidebars on the Widget Options page from the standard Sidebar 1, Sidebar 2 etc?

This entry was posted on Friday, April 21st, 2006 at 9:23 pm and is filed under WordPress Themes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

6 Responses to “A New Widget Clarity”

  1. wrnc Says:
    April 22nd, 2006 at 12:54 am

    Sounds like riddles to me but as long as you can do it, me happy, me thinks ;)

  2. Andreas Says:
    April 22nd, 2006 at 3:33 am

    I still don’t like the WP idea of using nested lists for the sidebars. I can see the positive effects with it, but it still looks really ugly (especially on my mobile phone browser). And the screen readers will probably go wild when trying to read out all lists… But that’s just me, haha… =) By the way, you’ll get an e-mail from me later today.

  3. Ainslie Says:
    April 22nd, 2006 at 12:11 pm

    Andreas, you have a good point. I know exactly what you mean, and I agree it is overkill, but I am trying to keep compatibility with Widgets that the end user simply wants to drop in and use with no hassle. I think this is probably the easiest way to do it and will create less requests for help from me. I will try a few add on Widgets to see how they work before I fully commit to doing it this way just to make sure first.

    The WordPress developers are more concerned with ease of use for end users than 100% accessibility and validity. Take the WYSIWYG editor - hated by anyone who can code, including me, but loved by the average user. That average user doesn’t care how it is made as long as it works.

  4. Diane Says:
    April 22nd, 2006 at 8:18 pm

    Thank you for taking the time to do this, I look forward to it. Thanks again.

  5. Karl R. Says:
    April 22nd, 2006 at 9:35 pm

    Take the WYSIWYG editor - hated by anyone …
    I took http://www.rajprasad.net/plugins/editormonkey
    and it’s great!!
    Karl

  6. Roger Says:
    April 26th, 2006 at 11:49 pm

    This is the first theme I met that comes close to a CMS 9if you want that)! Why? Because you are the only one (so far I know, I am maybe wrong here) that have thought to offer templates for Page!!!

    Just wa! And Wa again! To have the option to publish page with 4 tempaltes is absolutly incredible.

    Now, I am going to push a little bit further:

    1) how about a page without any columns at all! Just the TOP navigator links! Why! Best example: you write a rwal big article page with a tons of info!

    2) how about a page where you could pick up, at your choice, widget left column or widget right column!

    3) the top of the top: something like John did at http://www.urbangiraffe.com/themes/giraffe2.

    Use can choose one column, 1 columns, 2 columns, adjust the width of the columns, and more.

    Ainslie, with the wonderful pages templates you already have plus the option for the user to play with the colunns, you would create one of the most powerful blog-cms-flexible-type system available on the market (in terms of layout)!

    Thanks for your wonderful template with widget! I hate coding and I love widgets! I feel like a kid in a candy store! Everyday I go to the store to see what new candy is available!

    Roger

    PS: why dont you create a forum for the theme support? I think that would help you to avoid to have to answer to the same questions over and over!