Ticket #6556 (new enhancement)

Opened 4 months ago

Last modified 2 months ago

Impossible to move text/rss widgets between sidebars

Reported by: bryan868 Assigned to: anonymous
Priority: lowest Milestone: 2.9
Component: Administration Version: 2.5
Severity: minor Keywords: needs-patch
Cc:

Description

I'm guessing this isn't much of a defect, but here's hoping! From 2.3 to 2.5 we lost the ability to move existing Text or RSS widgets from one sidebar to another.

If you "remove" the widget from one sidebar it does not move to the unused widgets column, because of the way multiple widget instances was implemented. Thus when you navigate to another sidebar and add a Text/RSS widget, it's fresh and clean. No data is carried over!

Attachments

sidebar_arrange.php (11.4 kB) - added by bryan868 on 05/01/08 19:00:24.
Sidebar Arrangement Page
widgets.css (7.0 kB) - added by bryan868 on 05/01/08 19:01:18.
Additional CSS added to existing file
widgets-rtl.css (1.7 kB) - added by bryan868 on 05/01/08 19:01:38.
Additional CSS added to existing file

Change History

04/03/08 06:28:33 changed by Viper007Bond

  • severity changed from normal to minor.
  • component changed from General to Administration.
  • priority changed from normal to lowest.
  • version set to 2.5.
  • keywords set to needs-patch.
  • type changed from defect to enhancement.

This isn't a bug really. When you click on "Add", it spawns a new instance of the widget. When you click "Remove", it deletes that instance of the widget.

To do exactly what you're suggesting would require persistent widget instances, i.e. duplicates on the left side, something that was purposely removed from 2.5.

However, a feature could be created to move widgets directly from one sidebar to another, so I'm retagging this as an enhancement.

04/03/08 06:28:45 changed by Viper007Bond

  • milestone changed from 2.6 to 2.7.

04/03/08 10:41:24 changed by Denis-de-Bernardy

related:

http://trac.wordpress.org/ticket/5823

(follow-up: ↓ 5 ) 04/07/08 21:22:23 changed by bryan868

Viper- While this may not be a bug, it seems like a rather MAJOR design flaw. All other widgets can be moved from one sidebar to another. But you can't move an existing text/rss widget without it being stripped of its data. Can't the data be saved somewhere when an existing text/rss widget is removed from a sidebar?

I hope this can be resolved MUCH BEFORE 2.7.

(in reply to: ↑ 4 ) 04/08/08 00:47:10 changed by Viper007Bond

Only single instance widgets can retain their data because there's no unique ID tied to them. Multiple instance widgets, like the text and RSS ones, get a unique ID and storing that data after it's removed would do no good. How would you select that old widget to add it back to the other sidebar? You'd have to have duplicates on the left side and that's be a major step backwards.

A much better solution would be a way for widgets to be directly moved from one sidebar to another -- no removing/adding involved.

As for 2.7, that's just what milestone tickets are set to if they have no code or solution attached. If someone writes up code (you're welcome to BTW), it'll be bumped down to 2.6 or possibly 2.5.1. ;)

(follow-up: ↓ 7 ) 04/11/08 03:06:25 changed by michaelpark

In previous versions, I was able to use multiple text widgets without putting them on the sidebar; rather, I called them manually from various locations of my theme which was very handy. Now I have to put those contents statically.

In my opinion, this is a regression and not a progression. After all, WordPress is all about creating dynamic pages.

(in reply to: ↑ 6 ; follow-up: ↓ 8 ) 04/11/08 03:58:50 changed by Viper007Bond

Replying to michaelpark:

I called them manually from various locations of my theme which was very handy. Now I have to put those contents statically.

Just make those sidebars...

In my opinion, this is a regression and not a progression. After all, WordPress is all about creating dynamic pages.

While the new method has it's drawbacks (that we can fix), it's 100x better IMO, especially from a coder's standpoint.

(in reply to: ↑ 7 ) 04/11/08 04:09:39 changed by michaelpark

Replying to Viper007Bond:

Just make those sidebars...

A small section of the contents area? I don't think so...

(follow-up: ↓ 10 ) 04/14/08 06:27:16 changed by codeispoetry

it's 100x better IMO, especially from a coder's standpoint.

I think it is not an exaggeration to say that one of the reasons of the immense success of WordPress has been exactly that its UI didn't generally reflect the coder's standpoint, but rather that of the user. (Code should be poetry, but there is no reason to sacrifice intuitive user interfaces for that.)

(in reply to: ↑ 9 ) 04/14/08 09:36:29 changed by Viper007Bond

Replying to codeispoetry:

(Code should be poetry, but there is no reason to sacrifice intuitive user interfaces for that.)

Which is why I'm fully for allowing easy moving of widgets from one sidebar to another.

I was merely saying that this new widget manager is a huge step forward, albeit an imperfect one, and we shouldn't give up on it so easily and go back to the old multiple instances of widgets on the left hand side (which was rather crude).

04/14/08 22:05:11 changed by bryan868

What was so crude about it? So you had 'X' definable number of Text/RSS widgets, but it promoted individuality in widget instances. Plus with the new code you lose essential functions like moving from one sidebar to another. I mean come on, that's standard stuff that no longer works!

04/15/08 01:17:18 changed by Viper007Bond

The code was rather crude behind the scenes, plus you had to refresh the page to add more / remove widget instances. The definable number also was a hard cap on the number of widget instances you could have. You can now have 100 text widgets if you want, something you couldn't do in the old versions.

But as I said before, being able to move widgets directly from one sidebar to another would be a very handy feature, one I fully support.

05/01/08 19:00:24 changed by bryan868

  • attachment sidebar_arrange.php added.

Sidebar Arrangement Page

05/01/08 19:01:18 changed by bryan868

  • attachment widgets.css added.

Additional CSS added to existing file

05/01/08 19:01:38 changed by bryan868

  • attachment widgets-rtl.css added.

Additional CSS added to existing file

05/01/08 19:02:48 changed by bryan868

  • milestone changed from 2.7 to 2.6.

Added a "Sidebar Arrangement" page, which is essentially the drag and drop functionality from 2.3. This can be a separate sub-page under "Design," or even "Widgets."

Just upload file to /wp-admin/. The necessary CSS for this page was added to the widgets.css and widgets-rtl.css files.

I'm NOT SURE how to create a new link for this new sub-page on the admin navigation.

06/03/08 19:07:55 changed by Jairus

Great work, bryan868. The lack of drag-drop was a showstopper for my clients to upgrade.