[wp-trac] [WordPress Trac] #27404: Widget Customizer: Allow adding inactive widgets to widget areas

[WordPress Trac]

#27404: Widget Customizer: Allow adding inactive widgets to widget areas
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 Reporter:  westonruter                          |       Owner:
     Type:  feature request                      |  westonruter
 Priority:  normal                               |      Status:  accepted
Component:  Widgets                              |   Milestone:  4.8
 Severity:  normal                               |     Version:  3.9
 Keywords:  ux-feedback has-patch has-           |  Resolution:
  screenshots                                    |     Focuses:  ui,
                                                 |  javascript
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Comment (by folletto):

 Sorry, I posted the mock on #39693, I wasn't aware of a more specific
 issue here.

 The mockup above does a simple implementation of the suggestion above:

 >  It would be very useful if widgets that were made inactive as part of a
 theme switch could be grouped in a way to easily batch-add them to a
 sidebar in the new theme.

 From the other ticket: the goal here is exclusively to provide access to
 widgets that were dropped during a theme switch (or any other reason) with
 the additional restriction of having minimal impact.
 Features of the "Presets" i2 concept:

 1. Inactive widgets have a special separated area in the "Add a widget"
 panel.
 2. They are searchable as the other widgets, content included if possible
 3. They can be removed, and the removal has an extra trick here: one can
 position the mouse in the top-right X and keep clicking, removing all the
 inactive widgets easily in sequence (we probably need a form of undo for
 the ideal experience).
 4. The second line of the widget instead of showing the details shows when
 they were removed, thus giving a simple indication of how old a widget is.
 5. I avoided subtitle labels for the sections, but we can introduce them
 if we want. The current state might still work well enough.

 That's all. It's an approach "low key" enough to be effective, but at the
 same time very visible as it's inside the main "Add" flow: a user that
 "lost" a widget will get there, even just because they have to re-add
 them.

 Given the idea of groups as well, the mockup above is able to scale later
 to be grouped as needed, and folded, and so on.

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Ticket URL: <https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/27404#comment:55>
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