WordPress allows you to customize the site through plugins and widgets, and both are very user friendly. When you go to the widget section of the WordPress admin dashboard, you will see a drag and drop feature to let you add and delete widgets quickly. If you cannot find the widget you want to use though, you will need to create your own customized widget.
What is a Widget?
First, it is important to understand what a widget is designed to do, as this will help you when you are creating your own. Widgets help with the design of the WordPress theme and control the structure. This allows you the ability to customize the theme without having to touch the main code, potentially breaking the site. In addition, they allow developers to create plugins and themes that are more flexible.
How to Create a Widget
To make it easier to find your code, it is best to create a plugin that is site-specific. While the widget code will work if put in your functions.php file, it can easily get lost in the clutter. A site-specific plugin is created by making a new folder in your plugins directory, opening a new file, and save it as nameofsite-plugin.php” without the quotation marks and replace “nameofsite” with the name of your site. In the file, you will want to make sure you name the plugin and then fill the description in letting it know that it is for site-specific code changes.
To create a widget, you will need to know basic PHP code so you can define the widget and tell it what it will do for your site. In addition, you will need to tell it how changes can be made and make sure it is loaded. There are many sites that offer coding lessons, as well as sites that will give you code you can copy and paste into your widget. Once you have your widget created, you will see the widget in your appearance section of your admin dashboard. You can then drag it into the section you want it displayed in and customize it how you want.
Parts of a Widget Code
When you are creating code for the widget, there are four functions that you need to focus on. The first section of the code needs to talk about what actions will take place during creation of the widget. This talks about the output that is created. After you have the construction code complete, you will need to work on the front-end development of the code. This is where you will use HTML when you are editing the completed widget. Next, the back-end development needs to be in the code so the widget knows how to interact with the admin interface. Finally, you will need to make sure there is a section allowing you to update the widget as necessary.
When you are creating a widget in WordPress, you will need to know GetText. WordPress uses MySQL and PHP, and gettext is able to handle working with programs that use more than one language. It is for the localization and translation of code.