Easing the complexity

  • Hi Dave,

    Thanks for updating the plugin, it a plugin stuffed with features now.

    I was thinking about the complexity of using this plugin and one aspect of this is the lack of a display showing for the plugin is configured for each widget.

    This becomes a problem when you are returning to manage the widget months after you set it up, the only way to verify which pages the widget is going to display on is to open up each of the categories and inspect what has been configured.

    It occurs to me that it would be very useful if you could see how DWSP is configured if there was a display of the elements selected when you first open up the widget.

    I think this would go a long way towards improving the management of this plugin.

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)
  • Thread Starter Venutius

    (@venutius)

    First Para should read:

    I was thinking about the complexity of using this plugin and one aspect of this is the lack of a display showing how the plugin is configured for that widget.

    Plugin Author David Cameron Law

    (@seo-dave)

    I’d had a similar thought, I’ve some sites (I own over 100 domains) with a couple of dozen widgets with various widget logic: the SEO theme I develop (Stallion Responsive: used on all my WordPress sites) has an awesome SEO widget for loading Popular, Recent and other types of Posts with loads of silo SEO options.

    I tend to replicate those silo SEO widgets with slightly different options for different sections of a site (mixes up the anchor text of the links to Posts which is good for SEO reasons).

    To modify them requires opening them all up to remind me what the widget logic is AND what settings are loaded for the Posts selected etc… see screenshot, it’s a huge widget.

    Stallion SEO Posts Widget Silo SEO Widget Logic

    I considered listing all ticked options etc… like you suggested, but that could result in a huge list of ticked Categories, Static Pages, various options under “Content Types +/-“.

    I was thinking about an extra form for adding an Admin only comment, so rather than having a list of options ticked a form for the Admin user to add a descriptive comment just for them (like the hidden widget title when it starts with a !).

    A user might add something like this to their widgets Admin comment form:

    Amazon Affiliate Ad Shows on All Categories and their posts.

    Hidden on All BuddyPress and bbPress pages.

    UK flag Image Hidden on French Section

    French flag Image Hidden on UK Section

    Shown on Home and a Few Static Pages

    The comment would be just for the Admin users with access to “Appearance” > “Widgets” and wouldn’t be output to visitors.

    My concern is it could confuse Admin users, some will assume it’s output to visitors.

    David

    • This reply was modified 7 years, 12 months ago by David Cameron Law. Reason: broken link code
    Thread Starter Venutius

    (@venutius)

    Yes I had the same thoughts.

    Regarding the admin notes field, you could just call it something like – Admin Notes (not displayed in Front end) that should stop any confusion.

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)
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