[wp-hackers] Third Party Widgets

[Ryan Boren]

On 4/27/07, Computer Guru <computerguru at neosmart.net> wrote:
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> Aaron Brazell wrote:
> > I have a question.
> >
> > What on earth do widget developers have to do to make their widgets
> > available for the new widget system? IOW, it's no secret I run trunk. No
> > big deal. I ask for breakage and that's fine. As soon as widgets were
> > brought into the core, all custom widgets became unavailable. They are
> > active as plugins. But unavailable on the widget page itself. It might
> > be okay if thats the only place they were unavailable because, hey, who
> > really wants to move widgets around anyway, right? But they aren't
> > displaying in the sidebar of the blog either. In fact, the only widgets
> > available to me are the stock widgets which is relatively okay.
> >
> > Again, I don't ask for a lot except I admit to asking for a broken blog.
> > No problem. But what do those of us who WRITE widgets, say, for large
> > blog networks with widgetized themes (:grin:) do to prepare for the WP
> > 2.2 release?
>
> I've been wondering the same thing, more or less.
> Like you said: not really complaining, just wondering. A couple of days
> ago, I had an error with register_widget() being redefined - so I
> disabled my old widgets plugin, modified stupid widgets like "King's
> Widget" & Co. that need to be in the same DIR as widgets.php, and went
> to the presentation page. Till now, you can't get 3rd party widgets to
> show.
>
> I'm looking at the code:
>
> Stock:
>         register_sidebar_widget(__('Recent Comments'),
> 'wp_widget_recent_comments', null, 'recent-comments');
>         register_widget_control(__('Recent Comments'),
> 'wp_widget_recent_comments_control', 320, 90, 'recent-comments');
>
> 3rd Party:
>         register_sidebar_widget('Paypal Donate', 'widget_wpaypal');
>         register_widget_control('Paypal Donate', 'widget_wpaypal_control', 300,
> 350);
>
> Changing that second bit of code to:
>         register_sidebar_widget('Paypal Donate', 'widget_wpaypal', null,
> 'paypal-donations');
>         register_widget_control('Paypal Donate', 'widget_wpaypal_control', 300,
> 350, 'paypal-donations');
>
> Fixes the problem.
>
> Bascially, you have to suffix both function calls with a friendly
> machine name or something?
>
> I don't like it - there will be mass revolt when users find widgts no
> longer work -> they're supposed to be the most easy to use stuff in WP!

Sounds like a bug.  That stuff is supposed to be back compatible.

Ryan