libertus

They’re new and they’re all the rage! Widgets for WordPress are here and they have something to do with the sidebar of your blog. Well, what exactly?

Note: the plugin reviewed is not being used on this blog because it is compatible with WordPress 2.0 and above only. This blog runs Liberated WordPress 1.5.2.

Downloading and Installing Widgets

Get the code from the Automattic WordPress Widgets page, a 70k ZIP file, which seems a little large for a plugin. What does the Widgets package comprise?

What’s In A Box Of Widgets?

Unzip into the plugins directory of my local testing blog, resulting in a new folder named widgets. How big is the plugin?

paul@kubuntu:~/public_html/blog/wp-content/plugins$ du -h widgets

176K    widgets/scriptaculous
12K     widgets/classic
24K     widgets/default
284K    widgets

JESUS CHRIST! Nearly 300k of code for a PLUGIN?! That’s HUGE! And the bulk of that, nearly 200k, in something called scriptaculous. Better do a sanity check. My most recent plugin is big, but is it huge? No, Zeitgeist weighs in at 65k.

What The Bloody Hell Is Scriptaculous?

Web 2.0 JavaScript, that’s what. What a bonus! Not only do I get Widgets, my poor browser has to deal with nearly 200k of Web 2.0 JavaScript for some as-yet unknown reason, presumably beneficial. Actually, it had better be my browser. If that amount of JS is being delivered to provide the front-stage widgetised sidebar, Automattic can go fuck themselves. In other words, this enormous lump of steaming JavaScript had better be administration interface only.

Getting Started With WordPress Widgets

Installation complete and willfully ignoring the large README file, I plunge on…

Take The Plunge. Widgets… Activate!

My blog shows three new plugins; Sidebar Widgets, del.icio.us widget and Google Search widget. Excellent! My blog has a sidebar, I’m an avid user of del.icio.us and Google is… well… Google. Who doesn’t use Google search?

I’ll try the del.icio.us widget first. Activate!

Nothing. No change whatsoever.

Ah! Perhaps I’m supposed to activate the Sidebar Widgets plugin too! Duh!

Activate The Plugin First, Dummy!

Sidebar Widgets plugin… Activate!

Still nothing. I can’t see any difference. Perhaps I’m doing something wrong. I’d better read the README.

Marketing vs. Reality

Quoth the Widgets product announcement (emphasis mine):

If you’re a developer, writing a WordPress Widget is as easy as a plugin and we’ve even documented all the APIs for you, as well as including guides for theme authors and current plugin authors.

Quoth the documentation to which the announcement refers - the Widgets README file (emphasis mine):

* There are some undocumented functions. You are encouraged to read the source
code and see how we’ve created the standard widgets using these functions.

How Microsoft, Matt.

RTFM

Aha! I need to update my theme with files supplied by the plugin. There’s a new functions.php (which I’ll look at later on) and an updated sidebar.php. The change is simple - if the Widget sidebar is enabled, use that instead of the existing sidebar. OK, copy the files and see what happens.

Sidebar Widgets Are Go!

There’s a new menu option, but first what does the dynamic sidebar look like front-stage? Good. Much the same as before except the category list is nested differently. Cool! Any Javascript delivered? No. Lovely.

What does the admin interface look like? Ah!

Default Sidebar

Your theme will display its usual sidebar when this box is empty. Dragging widgets into this box will replace the usual sidebar with your customized sidebar.

OK, so my sidebar remains as yet unchanged. I have to select from this new list of goodies. Looking at the page source, the steaming pile of Javascript is used here, presumably to implement the drag-and-drop interface. So Web 2,0 is approaching the technology level of the Apple Lisa. Isn’t progress marvellous?

Do A Little Drag, Make Some Widget Love

I’ll have the… hmmm… what to choose…? Well, Search has to go first. Drag… drop!

OK, that’s cool. Maybe I can double-click too. Recent Posts next. Double-click… nothing. OK, drag all over the page… drop! In it goes.

Less cool, but I don’t have to do this often. Now, let’s say I’m unable to use the mouse. Can I add Recent Comments with the keyboard? Tab… tab… tabbity-tab. No! Drag and drop only. Web 2.0 accessibility is Stone Age compared to Web 1.0. Burn your keyboards, cave-people! Isn’t progress marvellous? All fur coat and no knickers.

Ah well, carry on adding my widgets. Meta, Pages, Links, del.icio.us, Categories and Archives.

New to my sidebar are Recent Comments and del.icio.us. I note that many of the widgets have configuration buttons next to them. I’ll surely need to configure the del.icio.us widget, so try that one.

Twiddling With My New del.icio.us Widget

Oooo! The configuration takes a modern form - a popup, not in a window, with the background page faded to dark. Pretty. Now, what can I set. I at least need to set my del.icio.us username. Done, nice and easy, except for having to figure out that the X is the only means to save. Hmmm… what about the Back button?

Twiddling With My Other Widgets

There’s not much to twiddle with except for titles. I want post counts and hierarchy for my category listing. All done. Too easy.

What does the sidebar look like front-stage?

Slow Down, Cowboy!

Pay attention! There’s a Save Changes button! What would have happened if I had just stormed off into the front-stage without saving? Well, it’s obvious really - the sidebar is unchanged. No problemo, just hit the Back button and… FUCK!!! All my dragging and dropping was for nothing! All my changes have been reset.

Guys, that is NOT how the Back button is supposed to work. The more exposure I have to Web 2.0, the less I like it. It’s being built by selfish, ignorant, bigoted, deep-browed, knuckle-scraping baboons with a fetish for style over substance and who think accessibility matters only to cripples.

GET! OFF! THE! WEB! YOU! PRICKS! Go back to school, or sleep, or both… like last time.

Repeat Myself

Losing changes is not cool. Forcing me to LART the Back button is not cool. Making me repeat myself is not cool. The Widgets administrative interface looks cool but that’s as far as it goes. The beauty is skin deep. Underneath, it’s a pile of steaming, standard-subverting Javashite.

OK, my widget configurations were kept so it isn’t irredeemably bad. Still… grumble grumble.

Really Getting Started With WordPress Widgets

Well, the new sidebar looks… pretty much the same as the old one. Good. The del.icio.us widget needs a title and the category list suffers from the age-old bug of not showing child categories that have posts if the parent category doesn’t. Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.

Conclusion - I Like!

Yeah, this is a better sidebar. I can do shit with this. I wonder how much effort they put into that Web 2.0 admin interface?

What About The New Functions?

Hey, almost forgot the new functions.php that Widgets drops into the theme directory. That’s interesting. What does it do? Registers the dynamic sidebar, that’s all. Also, the scriptaculous Javashite doesn’t make it to the front-stage.

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