Slayer’s Custom Widgets v1.2 WordPress Plugin Finally Out!

CUSTOM WIDGETS V 2.0 IS OUT! (3rd March 2009) Click here for release notes and download.

1. Short Intro

Yeah baby! You guys have been waiting for this pluign for quite a long time( well not that long, considering that only 3 weeks passed from custom widgets v1.0). Since the initial release of Custom Widgets lots and lots of features were requested and bugs were reported.

We(betng4u and me – me with the ideas, him with the coding) tried to handle each an every request, unfortunately there were a few which we couldn’t fulfill(for example: you can’t install Custom Widgets using Pluginstaller, and we didn’t work on making it compatible with Pluginstaller because we considered that the normal installation process is easy as pie).

FOR SCREENSHOTS VISIT THE CUSTOM WIDGETS v1.0 RELEASE POST (click)

2. Official Presentation Video

I know, i know the speech in the video is a bit monoton, but i’m wasted after 6 hours of college and 2 hours of workout.

Click here to watch on Youtube

3. New features

Before starting work on Custom widgets v1.2 i’ve made a log of feature requests that i considered clever and bug reports(scroll down if you want to skip this):

######Custom Widgets v 1.2 - changes to be made######
#####################################################

1) Fix category bug: custom widget added to a category
can't be removed

2*) Pluginstaller isn't installing custom widgets
(http://henning.imaginemore.de/pluginstaller/)
*IDEA REMOVED, with manual instalation it works just fine*

3) Add to widget addition page an authors section for user
to assign a widget to a specified author's posts only.

4) Conditional Tags simplification(use tickboxes):
- http://codex.wordpress.org/Conditional_Tags

a) "Show Widget Only on Homepage" - is_home()

Tooltip: "The widget is shown only on your blog's homepage
using the is_home() tag"

b) "Show Widget on all posts" - is_single()

Tooltip: "The widget is shown when any post is displayed
using the is_single() tag"

c) "Show Widget only on Sticky posts"  - is_sticky()

Tooltip: "The widget is shown when any stickied page is
displayed using the is_sticky() tag"

d) "Show Widget on Posts/pages Where commenting is open"
- comments_open()

Tooltip: "The widget is shown when any post is displayed
where commenting is possible using the comments_open() tag"

e) "Show widget on all pages" - is_page()

Tooltip: "The widget is shown when any page is displayed
using the is_page() tag"

f) "Show widget on all Categories" - is_category()

Tooltip: "The widget is shown when any category is displayed
using the is_category() tag"

g) "Show widget on all Tag Pages" - is_tag()

Tooltip: "The widget is shown when any Tag page is displayed
using the is_tag() tag"

h) "Show widget on all Archive pages" - is_archive()

Tooltip: "The widget is shown when any type of Archive page
is displayed using the is_archive() tag"

i) "Show widget on Search results" - is_search()

Tooltip: "The widget is shown on all search results using the
is_search() tag"

j) "Show widget on the 404 - Not found Error Page" -is_404()

Tooltip: "The widget is shown on the 404 - Not found error
page using the is_404() tag"

k) "Show Widget for admin previews" - is_preview()

Tooltip: "The widget is shown when a single post being
displayed is viewed in Draft mode using the is_preview() tag

-----------------------------------------------------
Each setting will have a "?" next to them which on hover
will show a balloon with a tip of what the setting does with
the tag name linked to the description at wordpress codex.

5) Compatibility with both php 4 and php 5. - DONE

6) Latest donors implementation. - Coming in v 1.3

######Custom Widgets v 1.2 - major bug reports######
####################################################

A) Works fine on fresh install,at upgrade nothing happens
- ISSUE FIXED

B) Extended features list looks like a zoo, needs
restructuring and more style | - ISSUE FIXED

C) Plugin description is missleading, needs a new one
- ISSUE FIXED (Used Jeff's description)

D) When an advanced feature is selected at a widget
the widget color doesn't turn red | - ISSUE FIXED

E) Make a Wordpress.org compatible readme | - ISSUE FIXED

F) Last minute issues: Users could only see a max number of 10
categories/tags/posts/pages on the options page | - ISSUE FIXED

######Custom Widgets v 1.2 - ETA - Launch######
###############################################

Friday, Oct 31 , 2008 (Halloween), Spooky!
Jeff's feedback arrived on Nov 2, Release on Nov 6 or 8.

4. Download Slayer’s Custom Widgets v 1.2

CUSTOM WIDGETS V 2.0 IS OUT! (3rd March 2009) Click here for release notes and download.

5. Installation Instructions

5.1 upload the slayer_Custom_Widgets directory to wp-content/plugins
5.2 activate the plugin (dashboard -> plugins -> find “Slayer’s Custom Widgets” -> click the activate button
5.3 head over to the usual Widgets section (wp-admin/widgets.php) and add some items to your sidebar
5.4 Now go to Slayer’s Custom Widgets section and select the widget you want to customize.
5.5 Add the desired widgets to the desired pages.
5.6 You’re all done!

If you want to show some love feel free to comment or to blog about the plugin :).

If you don’t want to do either of the above you can always suggest new features and report bugs.

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Respond

User Comments

  • David North - 08 Nov 2008 2AM

    Thanks.

    Installed fine and added the featuers I was looking for. This really help make my sited do what I want them to do.

    I can display widgets on the home page and no were else or on just certain pages.
    (Note: the Display on Home page only lable should be just Display on Home page, because you can check that box and select other pages to add it to.)

  • Monika B - 11 Nov 2008 6PM

    Awesome job! Thank you so much. Exactly what we were looking for here at Georgian College, Barrie, Ontario, Canada

  • Raj - 17 Nov 2008 6PM

    its amazing plug-in. kudos to u guys…..can u ad home page in the list of show on pages lists?… i have a plug in that i wanna show it on home page and some other pages except one.
    u might already have this feature….may be i m missing….will double check..

    raj

  • david schmeikal - 19 Nov 2008 2AM

    Beautiful plugin. and thank you so much for taking the time to develop it.

  • David North - 24 Nov 2008 6PM

    Is there a way to display and update the widgets that will appear on a page from the individual page update pages. If not this would be a nice addition.

    David

  • Tammy Hart - 24 Nov 2008 11PM

    This plugin is awesome, but I just need one more feature. I’ve tried figuring it out on my own, but I’m just not versed in php enough. I need to be able to edit the visibility of several different text widgets. The problem is, when i add a text widget, it’s listed as “text”. When I have five different text widgets, it gets confusing as to which is which. It would be very helpful if I could see the title of the text widget instead of just “Text”.

    This need is semi-urgent, and I might could afford to pay you to help me if you’re available. Please email tammy at tammyhartdesigns dot com

    Thanks!

  • David North - 01 Dec 2008 6PM

    It would be helpful to be able to do the widget selection or at least see what is selected on the individual page update page. Any way that could be an enhancement?

  • Rémi - 02 Dec 2008 4PM

    I installed the plugin and it seemed to be fine, but it doesn’t hide the widgets like it’s supposed to. For example, even if I specify some widgets to only appear on the home page, it still appears everywhere.

    I have WP v2.5.1 (which unfortunately I *cannot* upgrade). Is there anything I’m missing here?

    Also, I modified the plugin a bit so it displays it’s admin tab under “Design” instead of showing it among the top tabs.

  • Rémi - 02 Dec 2008 5PM

    I got it. It’s working now. However, I guess it’s a bit because of my custom theme. I am not using get_header() to include a header.php in the template since the header is already included. I just use wp_head() in the head HTML tag.

    So far, this plugin is the only one adding a callback to the ‘get_header’ action instead of ‘wp_head’, which all my other plugins do. (Although, I’m sure there must be other plugins using ‘get_header’ somewhere too and I should probably fix that lack of usage in my theme.)

    I modified line 75 in the slayer_Custom_Widgets.php from:
    add_action(’get_header’, array(&$this, ‘init’));
    to:
    add_action(’wp_head’, array(&$this, ‘init’));

    For my personal preference, like I mentioned earlier, I also renamed the tab for the admin page of the plugin and moved it in the ‘Design’ tag. To do so, I modified line 101 from:
    add_options_page(’Slayer`s Custom widgets’, ‘Slayer`s Custom widgets’, 8, __FILE__ , array(&$this, ‘admin_page’));
    to:
    add_submenu_page(’themes.php’, ‘Custom Widgets’, ‘Custom Widgets’, 8, __FILE__ , array(&$this, ‘admin_page’));

    Hope that helps!

  • slayer - 03 Dec 2008 8AM

    It would be helpful to be able to do the widget selection or at least see what is selected on the individual page update page. Any way that could be an enhancement?

    could you be a bit more specific?

  • slayer - 03 Dec 2008 8AM

    I installed the plugin and it seemed to be fine, but it doesn’t hide the widgets like it’s supposed to. For example, even if I specify some widgets to only appear on the home page, it still appears everywhere.

    I have WP v2.5.1 (which unfortunately I *cannot* upgrade). Is there anything I’m missing here?

    Also, I modified the plugin a bit so it displays it’s admin tab under “Design” instead of showing it among the top tabs.

    wordpress 2.5.1 is OLD, outdated and hackable, i would suggest you upgrade it to latest version ASAP

    upgrading is simple: download the package from Wordpress.org and upload the contents replacing old files. Once that is done point your browser to /wp-admin/upgrade.php and do the upgrade

    cheers,
    Tom

  • Rémi - 03 Dec 2008 12PM

    Oh, believe me, there’s nothing else I want besides upgrading that old version, especially to 2.7, but it’s for a government client and they have to do evalutions for new versions of software, which they don’t want to go through right now, and blah blah blah… the story goes on. Ugh…

  • slayer - 03 Dec 2008 7PM

    Oh, believe me, there’s nothing else I want besides upgrading that old version, especially to 2.7, but it’s for a government client and they have to do evalutions for new versions of software, which they don’t want to go through right now, and blah blah blah… the story goes on. Ugh…

    in that case all i can tell you is that i”m happy you got the plugin to work on it

    regarding wp 2.7: never update to a beta version unless you want to test it, wait for a final release

    cheers,
    Tom

  • jenny - 20 Dec 2008 7PM

    I wanna fucking THANK YOU for releasing this AWESOME fucking plugin. It saves me so much time and aggravation. You can bet if I had a job right now I’d donate $ to you guys because it is SWEET!!! This is the best plugin EVER!!! A must have!

  • Christiaan - 28 Dec 2008 3PM

    Hi Slayer, thanks for this plugin. Does it work with WP 2.7? The WP plugin page says it only works up to 2.6.3:
    http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/slayers-custom-widgets/

  • Seargeant - 28 Dec 2008 11PM

    Is there some reason that I am not given the option of selecting my home page as a page that I want my widgets displayed on? Unless I use the default option which is “ALL”, I am not able to display my widgets on my home page. I am using WP version 2.6.3. Could it have anything to do with my WP template? Rémi who commented above seemed to have a selection for his home page. Any thoughts would be helpful.

  • chip - 08 Jan 2009 6AM

    This isn’t working on my 2.7 site. I’m not much of a programmer so I don’t know if its the version or if its the theme I’m using. is anyone using this with success on a 2.7 site?

  • David - 10 Jan 2009 6AM

    Hi Tom: I’m just getting things set up now on my site and am a newbie on WP. Since I started from scratch a little over a week ago, I just went with WP 2.7 from the beginning. Well, you know where I’m going … when do you think you’ll have this plug-in working on 2.7?

    The plug-in looks great, and it will save me a lot of time as it solves problem of having context-sensitive sidebar content. Thank you for your hard work.

  • Thorsten - 10 Jan 2009 12PM

    What Tammy wrote would be 100% helpfull !!
    …I try to manage 10 different textwidgets and all I can see as title is 10-times:”text” ;-)

    This plugin is awesome, but I just need one more feature. I’ve tried figuring it out on my own, but I’m just not versed in php enough. I need to be able to edit the visibility of several different text widgets. The problem is, when i add a text widget, it’s listed as “text”. When I have five different text widgets, it gets confusing as to which is which. It would be very helpful if I could see the title of the text widget instead of just “Text”.
    This need is semi-urgent, and I might could afford to pay you to help me if you’re available. Please email tammy at tammyhartdesigns dot com
    Thanks!

  • Glen - 13 Jan 2009 2PM

    I love the plugin but in some cases it is not working correctly (or I am doing something wrong)

    I have tried several times to use it to show a text widget only on the home page. Everything is de-selected except that choice in settings. Still – it shows up on all single pages as well. It may be showing up on categories too but since I do not have a LH sidebar in categories I do not know.

    Anyway I can get you to look?

  • Glen - 13 Jan 2009 3PM

    My bad, when you look in the admin setting for this plugin it has the LH sidebar on the right and the RH sidebar on the left. That is what confused me. Can we get that reversed so it makes sense as you glance at it? I think a person just logically associates what is on the left hand side of the admin screen to be for the left sidebar, vice versa.

  • Pat - 18 Jan 2009 3AM

    Installed perfectly but not working :( is it a WP 2.7 issue or is a a theme issue. Please help.

  • Pat - 18 Jan 2009 4AM

    Installed perfectly but not working is it a WP 2.7 issue or is a a theme issue. Please help.

    Is interesting: (ie) I have the ad-box widget assigned to all posts, all pages, all categories BUT it would only show up in all categories. !?!? http://www.vergetv.com

    Please help

  • Giggli - 26 Jan 2009 5PM

    When I installed this plugin, it has made thre eof my widgets disappear.

    I had Recent Posts, Recent comments, and Archive in a sidebar widget created by the “Fun With Sidebars” plugin (http://www.wp-fun.co.uk/fun-with-sidebar-tabs/). They were working fine.
    After loading Slayers plugin, those three widgest should up in the unregistered area, and I can’t get them to show up on any sidebars. I have tried uninstalling and reinstalling plugins, changing themes, but they stay listed as Used and are missing.

  • Allan - 03 Feb 2009 6AM

    Great Widget, just what I needed. The home page does not show up as an option in the page listings. So I have no way of leaving a widget on the home page only. If it helps any, the home page does not show up in the WP add/edit pages. I am using an itheme, and the home page content is filled in via a form. Any suggestions on how I could make this work for my theme?

    Thanks.

    Allan

  • Allan - 05 Feb 2009 1AM

    I see a few other people had this “home” page issue. Has it ever been resolved?

  • slayer - 07 Feb 2009 5PM

    As it says in the Wordpress plugin repository Custom widgets 1.2 isn’t compatible with wordpress 2.7. CW v 2.0 is due to be released next week, you can see current feature list and send suggestions IN THIS POST

  • Acupuncture Websites Guy - 09 Feb 2009 11PM

    Thanks to Rémi (Post #11).

    I’ve got several different page templates, and the main difference is actually the page headers/menus, so I’m importing different header files. So the plugin only works on the page that uses get_header();

    In the next release please make the change mentioned:
    I modified line 75 in the slayer_Custom_Widgets.php from:
    add_action(’get_header’, array(&$this, ‘init’));
    to:
    add_action(’wp_head’, array(&$this, ‘init’));

    Great plugin though.

    Thanks.

    Burton

  • Steve - 13 Feb 2009 12AM

    Awesome plugin…. I love it.

    The only thing I haven’t been able to do so far is show them on the main blog page.
    This is likely because the Blog is not the home page… I can get things to show up on the individual post pages, but not on the main blog itself… With this particular site, this is how it has to be…
    The site isn’t live yet, it is working on my laptop using MAMP.

    Any ideas?

    Thanks!!!

  • Darius - 18 Feb 2009 11PM

    Brilliant! Works perfectly and is just what I needed. Thanks

  • Anonymous - 19 Feb 2009 6AM

    I have v1.2 installed on my computer along with WP2.7. So far, I have not had any issues with it working correctly.

    I sure do hope that you add Widget Titles (especially for text) so that we can see exactly which text widget we have placed where.

    Thanks for all the time you have spent!

  • oxy - 19 Feb 2009 6PM

    Great looking plugin. I am subscribed and waiting for the next version!

  • Matt - 24 Feb 2009 6PM

    I am having the same problem Steve is having above. It works fine on most pages except the blog page (which is not the same as the home page). When I tell something to display on the blog page specifically, it disappears. If I reset that widget, it works again. One possible clue is that when I set all my current widgets to appear on the blog page, I get a sidebar with all the default widgets (recent posts, search, archive, calendar, blogroll, etc.) rather than the widgets I have enabled. Any ideas? I’m running 2.7.1.

  • Herb - 26 Feb 2009 6AM

    Really awesome, but then it stopped working. I chose to have Recent Posts widget on Blog page only. To check I click on other pages, it was gone, then clicked again on Blog page… and it is gone.

    http://www.bradhalcrow.com/blog/

    I can send screenshot of admin if that helps. (Probably not – it’s pretty straight forward)

    Thanks,
    Herb.

  • Steve - 26 Feb 2009 7AM

    I solved the problem with a workaround…
    By assigning it to “all pages that allow comments” it works because I do not allow comments on any of the static pages… only the blog and the individual post pages.
    What I assign that way appears on all blog and post pages.

  • Herb - 26 Feb 2009 9AM

    I solved the problem with a workaround…

    Was that for me Steve? If so I’m not quite following you.

  • slayer - 26 Feb 2009 1PM

    Okay, guys the CW plugin v2.0 is due to be released really soon.

    please mail any bugs(with screenshots and description!) to tom@thaslayer.com

  • Brad - 26 Feb 2009 1PM

    NOW I do. Thanks Steve.

  • RogueDeals - 10 Mar 2009 4PM

    Shouldn’t the Homepage only checkbox just say ‘Add to Homepage’ because it still works with other filters applied, so its not really ‘Only’ the homepage. Just wondering because its a little confusing.

  • jean - 21 Mar 2009 7PM

    Wonderful plug in.
    Feature request:
    I would really like it if each of your logic boxes allowed my checked items to be either include or exclude.
    Then I could, for example, exclude recent posts only from the home page with one x and not have to go back to specifically include it on another page when I add one.
    I know that having both include and exclude logic can create problems so I suggest that the user choose whether they want to specify include on these pages or exclude from these pages.
    Inside your php, this would just add a ! before your selections or not.
    In the absence of this feature, I am still using widgit-logic but if you had it, I would only need your plugin and no others.
    Thanks, again for a great plug in.

  • Truck - 22 Mar 2009 11AM

    Good Work!!! Thankzzzz

  • Lyndon - 27 Mar 2009 3AM

    Hi Tom,

    First let me say what an awesome plugin

    I seem to be having some issues
    I dont quite understand.

    Like Im having widgets being removed from
    the home page when Im removing them from
    another page.

    When I remove them from the page I dont
    want them to show on its also being removed
    from the home page. Is there something Im
    doing wrong?

    Thanks

    Im new to Word Press.

    Learning very fast though.

  • Martin - 09 Apr 2009 12PM

    Hey, great plug-in. Saves me having to hack the header.php file in the theme, which is great for updates.

    I have a situation where I want a particular widget to appear at all times, except on one page. I can achieve this by checking the Show Widget only on Homepage, and then adding specific pages except the one I don’t want the widget to appear on.

    This seems a little counter-intuitive, and it would be great if there was an option to exclude a page from displaying a widget, as this way every new page I create I have to add to the include list.

    But that’s just a small gripe. Thanks for the plug-in.

  • Pete - 12 Apr 2009 11AM

    I have one bug: my homepage is more like normal pages. The blog I use on one subpage for “news”. When I set up for example a text widget, it is from the beginning shown on all pages. That works. With Custom Widgets I can now limit it to certain pages to be shown. Works also…… except the blog page “news”. There it just does not show up on the right sidebar. The left sidebar is working fine. In the right sidebar I only see the text “blablabla how to get content into the sidebar”.

    Conclusion: In the right sidebar I can weather show a widget on all pages or on certain pages except the blogpage “news”. Any idea how to get the widgets also shown up there ?????

    Thanks !

  • bradley - 28 Apr 2009 6AM

    Steve, thank you for your comment (#39). The only widget that was showing up on my blog page (which is not being used as the homepage) was the one that I did not customize. Although the v2.0 admin screen said the customized widgets would display on my blog page, I only got them to display after the workaround tip from Steve. However, the workaround won’t work if comments are on a page where I don’t want a specific widget.. Hopefully this bug can be fixed.
    I agree that this is a great plugin. Thanks!

  • BaldGoat - 12 May 2009 4PM

    Love the plugin.

    It would be great if you could assign a widget to a specific author page.

  • Daniel - 13 May 2009 9AM

    Hey there,

    First of all – THANK YOU for posting that video! I mean that was REALLY helpful. I plan on installing/trying your widget and if I find it useful (which I expect I will) I will most definitely show my appreciation to you with a donation.

    I encourage everyone to do the same! Coding takes a lot of work, and posting a tutorial video shows how much the author actually CARES about the users of his plugin. Lets pay some of that care back!

  • Trevor Dunham - 14 May 2009 8AM

    same problem with Steve…When I tell something to display on the blog , it totally disappears…any help would be greatly appreciated…
    Turkey Travel Guide and Photos

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