There’s been an interesting discussion on Justin Tadlock’s blog about replacing “sidebar” in WordPress. It originally spawned 10 months ago by Ian Stewart, but no progress has been made. It seems as if Justin already choose what he feels is correct for his Hybrid theme, but whatever that is, he’ll probably have to change it anyway. WordPress 2.8 is just around the corner and one of it’s primary feats is to revamp wp-admin/widgets.php.
I’m sure the revamp of the widgets management page has been given a lot of thought by WordPress core developers and Matt M. himself. I think that if we were to deprecate get_sidebar and the term Sidebar, Matt would have the best opinion on that matter. Simply because he understands both the end-user and developer perspective and he sees the bigger picture. So I’m all ears for hearing what he has to say about all this jazz.
My final opinion on this matter aligns somewhat with Lorelle, “Call them WordPress Widgets and announce that they have broken the sidebar barrier.”
get_sidebar shouldn’t be deprecated as a whole as it still could serve it’s purpose. What probably needs to be deprecated is get_sidebar’s parameters and how widgets are branded.
For the first problem, move get_sidebar’s parameters on over to a new function called get_widget(); and call it a day. get_sidebar will still be able to call sidebar.php and WordPress 2.8 won’t cause a pandemonium break out when theme authors have to update all their themes. Here, I’ll show you how you could add this new function to your own theme, right now:
function get_widget( $name = null ) {
do_action( 'get_widget' );
if ( file_exists( get_stylesheet_directory() . "/{$name}.php" ) )
locate_template( get_stylesheet_directory() . "/{$name}.php" );
else
echo "Sorry, but {$name} does not exist. Please make sure this widget exist in " . get_stylesheet_directory() . "";
}
What this function does is check to see whether a widget exist by the name of $name, which you define like so: get_widget( 'the_content' );. If it does exist, load it in the WordPress environment and include that widget. If it doesn’t exist, throw out a helpful error message. Add that to your functions.php and you’re all set. So instead of having sidebar-widgetname.php, you could just have widgetname.php.
Then there’s still the wp-admin/widgets.php problem. Again, that’ll require someone who understands both the end-user and developer perspective, I’m too baised towards the latter so my opinion isn’t justifiable for everyone.
I haven’t made up my mind just yet. I was hoping to hear something from someone a bit more “official,” but none of the WP.org developers chimed in.
Personally, I wouldn’t name a function that gets a widget area
get_widget. It sounds like you’re only grabbing one widget instead of an entire set of widgets. Maybe just append an “s” on the end, at least.While it would be neat to get some new terminology, maybe we don’t even need it. WP 2.7 introduced the
locate_templatefunction, which gives plenty of control over templates. Maybe it’s best if theme developers are left to come up with their own terminology.Seems like we have different ways of calling widgets. You mind explaining your way for how you’d like widgets to work?
Updated the article for
locate_templateinstead ofload_template. Didn’t know about that neat function.No, we actually have the same idea here from what I can see. I agree that all that would be needed is a new function like you’ve shown. But,
get_widget()just sounds like you’re only grabbing a single widget. When, in fact, we would be loading an entire widget area (i.e. container, section, etc.).I think
get_widget_area()would make more sense here.I did notice that in the title of your post, you said we need a new “term to describe widgets.” I’d like to keep the current terminology for widgets. What I want is a new term to describe the thing that contains widgets, which we’ve been calling sidebars.
The term get_sidebar should definitely stay. They function calls up a particular template, which is intended for sidebars. It has nothing to do with the issue over widgets, it just coincidentally happens to often be used for displaying widgets.
Ryan, I definitely agree that
get_sidebar()should stay. It’s perfect for including sidebars.I think the biggest issue is just breaking out of the mindset that widgets only go in sidebars.
One step closer to WordPress as a CMS. I think it would be a very useful feature.
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Very useful. Would streamline the code more. As of now one sometimes call the widget via the sidebar and sometimes through the code; i.e. using a widget in the footer. This is a great suggestion!
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And some people say Wordpress is rather limited!
I think this is a great suggestion and should sped up the loading the of the page.
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That would be a great addition to the code base.
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Nice list. You need to add me as well, just list me as the “most awesomest WordPress theme developer in the world.”
kthxbai
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Amazing list. Thanks for the share.
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Awesome list. Definitely a list of WP rock stars. Really dig how you added both blogs, and twitter feeds if applicable.
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I submitted this to digg:
http://digg.com/software/50_People_in_WordPress_That_You_Should_Be_Following
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Ryan I’m just a lowly wordpress user but I love the list. I’ve benefited from the work of well over half the hard working (and brilliant) people on this list. It’s great to see who they are and be able to better connect with them.
Great Resource thanks:
(Now I’m off to add lots new blogs to my reader)
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Thanks for the list And a very nice list it is
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Whoa!! I have lost the count on how many links I clicked here. Thanks Ryan!
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this is great.. thanks for the good post.
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[...] that little smiley face is up there on the right, I discovered this post about who to follow on WP: Who’s Who. The first like 20 people are developers of WP and related sites, widgets, themes, etc. Honestly, I [...]
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Great post, the best of the best in WordPress, this list is a must read!
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Thanks for featuring me in this list! If you want I can give you a line or two more info about myself
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That would be great! I would have had something more, but I try to just shut up when I don’t have anything to say, you know?
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I’m so happy to have made the list. I will definitely be sending some link love your way. If anyone was interested in one of my upcoming project launches, please sign up at ThemeSmith and get in on some beta testing.
Thanks once again on the great post. You really hit the nail on the head. Will check in later this week for more comments.
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Thanks! And I went ahead and added your link to ThemeSmith up under your listing. You’ll have to let me know when ThemeSmith launches, I’d be happy to feature it (whatever it is ) once it’s ready to roll.
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Hello! It’s nice to be in this list among other great contributors to WP throughout the times!
However, while I am indeed a web developer, I work for Skyrock in France, not for Automattic.
(Though I would consider an offer. *wink wink*)
(And I really have to bring my english-speaking weblog back from the dead, as nowadays all my writings are in french…)
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Thanks, Michel! I updated the post to include you in the Community, rather than the Core. Whoops. I knew something like that was bound to happen with a list this big. Thanks for letting me know before the egg sat on my face too long.
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Great list indeed. I actually subscribed to about 80% of this list already, but I’m glad I found the remaining 20% here.. well, ’till you do a follow-up post with the remaining 50
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Great list, and thanks for the mention Ryan. Would have responded sooner but have been out of town. Also, I can get you a more flattering headshot if you want
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Yeah, that would be great if you want to send it over!
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Very good list of developer list, l should fallow each of them adding them now. bookmarked. thanks.
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A great list, thanks for sharing!!!
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Oh dear, you forgot to mention any of the moderators over at the WordPress forum – especially our beloved moshu, who really helps keep the community together!
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Great list of people to follow to get tips for Wordpress!
I’m sure I’ll be learning a lot from these Tweeples!
Thanks,
Douglas Wade
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Great list. Adding most of them on Twitter too as we work a lot with Wordpress too
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Wow! Huge list of cool people. Added a bunch of them to twitter. Thanks.
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This has to be one of the best lists around. Not only it covers employees at automattic, it also features those people have contributed in the community.
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This one clearly portrays the essence of web. Sharing & Colloboration.
A great piece to be shown to people who say, web is all business and mechanical with no personal/emotional touch/aspect to things !
Could you tell how to get a biggie-biggie comment form like this ?
Will simple edits to comments.php do the thing ?!
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Sure, Aravind. It’s all about the CSS, really. If you have experience with CSS, you’re just going to increase the font size, line height, padding, and height of your inputs and textareas to get this effect.
Let me know if you’re successful or not.
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This list should have been called the 50+ MEN you should be following… my finger hurts from frantically scrolling until I found a woman on the list, LOL…. just teasing you, I always gotta represent! Good stuff.
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Ha, good point Jenny. I was definitely conscious of that fact while putting the list together, and made sure to find a few women for the list. If you run across any that are missed, definitely let me know. We could always use a few more women involved in WordPress development!
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Thanks. I’ll try that out.
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The big thing about the list is that, the people who are featured weren’t slammed with a title “Kings/Mavens/Rockstars/Experts/Celebrities”, rather, employed a humane approach and is exactly what makes this one special. !
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Thanks for saying that, Aravind. I’ve never really been a fan of the “celebrity/rockstar” label when it comes to web design/development, on all levels. I think it’s awesome enough that we are building the web, why sugarcoat it with a reference to a musicians? I’m cool enough, thank you.
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I wish someday I would be named in a list like that. But more importantly, this list has brought out lot of sites i missed in my Feed Reader. Thanks
Regards
TJ
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Hey. Wish to get on a list like this in the future. BTW about the podcast, I’m interested, contact me pls on email or @kovshenin Thanks!
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Maybe it would have been easier to include more women if you waived the requirement for their full (real) name and photo? Post-Kathy Sierra I can’t be the only one being cautious about the degree of personal information I splash over the internet.
There are women doing good work in the theme arena (e.g. Elena @ Design Disease, Lisa Klicko @ Lorelei) but they tend to focus on marketing the product rather than themselves and hence get overlooked. (True, they don’t blog about WP, but then neither do many of the other people on this list.)
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Schweet!
I went through a similar list a while back … created 2 Netvibe tabs, one via Yahoo!Pipes for posts from Automattic (a href=”http://bentrem.sycks.net/automatticpipe_js.html”>raw output) and another for WP blogs (a href=”http://bentrem.sycks.net/wordpresspipe_js.html”>raw) … time for a comprehensive update!
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I’m 100% up for the change. Semantic value to the code always make me happy.
@Dean, how would it speed up the loading of the page? If the change happens, wordpress will RENAME the function get_sidebar() to get_widget() unless they make changes to the code to improve the perfomance of the wdgets.
This comment was originally posted on http://wpcandy.com/)“>WPCandy – The Best of WordPress
This is the list to be in! Someday, I’ll make it. Enjoying your posts so far Ryan. Keep up the good stuff. Also, if you don’t mind – I’m fell in love with your comments form. Mind if I copy it for my redesign?
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