[Plugin: Section Widget] Insert PHP code

Hi, Dukessa, thank you for the love ??

Because one of our goals for building this plugin is to use it on multi-user sites, we will not build that functionality into the plugin anytime soon. That being said, shortcodes ARE going to help you in this case, because you should be able to find a PHP shortcode plugin and do something like this:

[php]
$text = “Hello World”;
echo $text;
[/php]

See how powerful shortcode + widgets can be? ??

In fact, we already linked to one such plugin in the FAQs. Unfortunately, I have just tested it for you, and it doesn’t seems to work on the widget because it is not a “true” shortcode plugin. Having realized this is quite important to some of our users, I’ll probably fork that plugin tonight and make a “real” shortcode version for it (since the original author seems to be gone).

Again, I’m glad you enjoyed the plugin.

By the way, can I ask you for two favors? ??

1. Since we have spent quite a bit of time figuring out the User Interface, and it is our interest to deliever a first class user experience, I’d love to hear some feedbacks from you on that regarding. Is that anything that feels awkward or confusing (at least when you see it for this first time)? I’d especially want to hear about your experience with the “CSS Scope” settings because I imagine that would be quite challenging for some less technically capable users. Does the default settings works “out of the box”? Or does the detection process runs smoothly?

2. We’re in a contest, so if you like the plugin, feel free to vote for it here: https://weblogtoolscollection.com/pluginblog/2009/07/30/section-widget-for-your-section-specific-needs/

Thanks in advance!

I’m going to be using 2.03 because I don’t want to be loading up useless js/css for a site that doesn’t use tabbed widgets. Perhaps it would be beneficial to turn off loading of the js/css when a tabbed widget is not in use.

PseudoKnight, thank you for the feedback. In fact, you can already turn off the CSS by choosing “Bring My Own Stylesheet” in the themes menu. I’ll add an option to disable the JS in the near future.

I tried that, but it still loaded the js/css. Perhaps I should have double checked. Thanks for the info.

Dukessa, sorry for the delay. The finished PHP Shortcode plugin could be found here: https://www.ads-software.com/extend/plugins/php-shortcode/

Once installed, you may use PHP code in the Section Widget – just wrap it with [php] and [/php]. Hope you’ll enjoy it!

PseudoKnight,

Sorry for keeping you waiting. I have updated the plugin and the CSS/JS will only be loaded when necessary.

Godfrey

Sorry for the delayed reply and THANK you!! ??

I found out that I could insert pure php code into the Section widgets, just by activating the plugin called PHP Exec :)))
But your [php] plugin will help too, in case I dont want to use the PHP Exec one.

About the look, I didnt have a single problem, I edited the Blitzer theme to go with my site, and it worked just fine out of the box.

I have a little request:
Could it be possible to choose where to make the tabs appear in a tabbed widget?
For example, if I want 3 tabs on top of the widget, and 3 at the bottom?

I gave you a 5 star vote ??

Well, we have problem with the Tabbed section widget.
Often in IE8, FF3 and Safari the whole widget page gets stuck and an error message appears:

The script is not responding (could be busy or stopped responding) You can end the script or continue.
Script: https://mysite.com/wp-admin/load-scripts.php?c=1&load=sack,jquery,jquery-ui-core,jquery-ui-tabs,jquery-ui-sortable,utils&ver=a87ca36613b85d3db4695a50ecca3806:20

I can choose to either end the script or continue, either ways, I need to restart the browser.

How can we fix this?
Its quite bad, as it prevents any widget to be edited… cos the page just wont load ??

Hi Dukessa,

That error seems a bit odd because the script you are refering to is just the built-in WP script loader. Does disabling the plugin helps to solve the problem? You may also try navigating to that https://mysite.com/wp-admin/load-scripts.php?c=1&load=sack,jquery,jquery-ui-core,jquery-ui-tabs,jquery-ui-sortable,utils&ver=a87ca36613b85d3db4695a50ecca3806:20 URL directly and observe how long does it take to download that file completely and if that file is ridicously bloated.

Hope it helps!

Godfrey

Hello!
I navigated to that file and it is pretty busy in there LOL.

The thing is that, this didnt happen with the previous version of the plugin. It started as I updated to the newest version (last week or so).
It’s really annoying cos I cant manage any widget properly now, as the whole page takes ages to load first, then the error appear and all.

Do you think you could look into this? unfortunately my php knowledge wont be helpful in this case.

Thank you for your patience ??

Hi Dukessa,

I tried to look into the problem on my side, unfortunately since I cannot reproduce the problem there is not a lot I can do. So I think I might need some help from you:

1. Try disabling the PHP Exec plugin and see if that resolves the issue. If that fixes it you can stop here because it’s probably caused by that plugin. If not, you may enable that plugin again since it’s not causing the problem.

2. Try disabling the section widget plugin and see if that resolves the issue. If that fixes it you can be certain that something is wrong with section widget. Proceed to the next step. If it does NOT fix it you will have to look somewhere else because it is not caused by section widget.

3. Try manually “rollback” to the previous version (maybe 3.0.2? — grab it here) . You can do this by replacing the section-widget folder in your /wp-content/plugins/ with the one you extracted from the zip file. If this fixes it, it confirms your observation that something in the lastest version is breaking your widgets panel. If it still does not fix it, then the problem is likely caused by some other changes on your site.

Let me know your findings! Thanks so much for your help Dukessa ??