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Creating a custom widget

By Austin On January 16, 2009 Under Tips & Tricks

Today let’s learn a simple quick trick on how to create a custom widget. For my example I will show you how I created my Showcase widget located in the middle, to the right of the posts.

First under your functions.php file type in the following:

<?php // Custom Widget
function MyCustomWidget() { ?>
<li class="widget">
    <h2 class="heading">Latest Showcase</h2>
        <ul>
        	<?php include(TEMPLATEPATH . '/includes/showcase.php'); ?>
        </ul>
</li>

<?php }

register_sidebar_widget('The Custom Widget for Showcase', 'MyCustomWidget'); ?>
  • Always make sure your code is between the <?php and ?> for it to work.
  • Once we call the function, the rest is assuming html code that you may or may not need.
  • For instance, you may just put in a picture and call it a day. But my code starts with <li< because my sidebar’s start and end with <ul<.
  • Any way, once your done, just set the final “register_sidebar_widget('the widget title', 'the name of the function');“

That’s it! Now you have a custom widget with what ever you want!

1 Trackback

  1. WPStart.org » Blog Archive » WordPress links week 3 - 2009
    January 16, 2009 4:16 PM


3 Comments Add yours

  1. Alex
    February 13, 2009
    11:40 pm

    Thank You! A Lot!

    This really helped me!

    BTW How did you make the archives widget to show the dates separately into two columns?

    Thank you.

    • frosty
      February 14, 2009
      8:59 am

      No problem, I will write up a post on that, check back or subscribe. Thanks Alex.

  2. Glenn
    March 19, 2009
    4:51 pm

    Austin,

    I just found this post while checking out my ad. You might want to try this little widget with Widgetifyr.com and see what added features it gives you. In the instant version you’d get all the theme complaint pre and post calls. You can all the nice control panel stuff like a title and description.

    I was thinking about just doing it for you and pasting it here, but I wasn’t sure how code would be translated in a comment.

    Thanks
    Glenn
    Widgetifyr.com