How to create a WordPress Widget

February 15, 2008 • Php, Tutorials, WordPress by Emanuele Feronato • 62 Comments

I think it’s time to learn how to create a WordPress Widget. WordPress (WP from now on) is the most used blogging platform, and I want to help everybody to code their favorite widgets.

From the official site (where you can find a lot of widgets): WordPress Widgets (WPW) is like a plugin, but designed to provide a simple way to arrange the various elements of your sidebar content (known as “widgets”) without having to change any code.

From a geeky point of view, a widget is a php file. Fullstop. Being a php file, you can make whatever you want. You “just” need to master php and follow some guidelines given by WP guys.

To make the simplest widget ever, you have to know only two WP functions:

The first is register_sidebar_widget($name, $function): adds your widget in the widget admin panel. You simply have to change $name with the name of your widget and $function with the function that your widget will execute.

The second one is add_action($event, $function): $event tells what event your $function should be associated with.

Ok, now let’s write some php

Triqui widget

I love Emanuele Feronato";
}

function init_triqui(){
	register_sidebar_widget("Triqui", "triqui_widget");
}

add_action("plugins_loaded", "init_triqui");

?>

Lines 2-9: This commented code is needed to show WP users who made the plugin, what does the plugin do, where to download updates, and so on. Look at this picture:

It represents your plugin management page, and you can see how your information is displayed according to what you write in lines 2-9

Line 11: Beginning of the widget itself

Line 12: The widget… just writing the title (between h2 tags) and a link to my blog

Line 15: Function to initialize the widget

Line 16: As explained before, I am registering the sidebar widget calling it Triqui, and want it to execute the triqui_widget function, the one at lines 11-13

Line 19: When the plugins are loaded, I want init_triqui to be executed. Doing this way, once plugins are loaded, I register the sidebar widget that will display the link at my blog.

And that’s all.

Now you have to save your file with a php extension (for example triqui.php) and upload it in your wp-content/plugins directory you will find in your WP installation.

Then you will find your Triqui plugin in your plugin management page and once you activate it you will find the Triqui widget in your Sidebar Arrangement page (Presentation -> Widgets in your admin panel)

WordPress widget

… and… that’s it… now drag your widget into your sidebar and you will display my link in your blog.

This was the very first widget… but soon I will teach you how to develop more complex and interactive widgets, and, why not, widgets that could you earn some money.

Meanwhile, why don’t you display my widget for a day or two? If you do it…

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This post has 62 comments

Graham Kaemmer

on February 18, 2008 at 5:08 pm

Just out of curiosity, what do you use to syntax highlight your scripts? Is it something that comes with wordpress?
Emanuele Feronato

on February 19, 2008 at 10:33 am

It’s called syntax highlighter, google for wordpress syntax highlighter and you will find a lot
Graham Kaemmer

on February 19, 2008 at 3:30 pm

Thanks
Dmitry

on February 19, 2008 at 4:59 pm

Thank for for interesting widget ideas.
Cahyo

on February 24, 2008 at 2:07 am

Thanks for the tutorial…
EagleVision

on February 26, 2008 at 4:27 pm

LOVE IT! :D
Jogos

on March 9, 2008 at 3:49 pm

I was looking for this type of articles. Now I have got some ideas about creating WordPress widget. Great!
stratos

on May 12, 2008 at 11:00 pm

man nice tutorial. stress out somewhere that the comments are usefull! :D it took me 15 minutes to figure out what was going on… nice one man!!
Mister Chief

on May 27, 2008 at 9:41 pm

Just what I’m looking for. You seem to be able to code in all sorts of languages, your very skilled.
bmattb

on June 7, 2008 at 5:09 am

thanks for the great tutorial!
bobman

on July 8, 2008 at 1:01 am

Thank you for this tutorial, but one concern:

I’ve done exactly what you said, but when I activate the plugin and add it to a sidebar in WP 2.5.1, I then get a blank screen following a save of my new settings.

Refreshing the page or using the back button let’s me see the admin side of things again, but everytime I change a setting (essentially submitting a form), I get a blank screen…any ideas why?

Thanks
tektok

on July 29, 2008 at 7:35 pm

Nice, I like it. Keep up the good work.
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Joe

on August 23, 2008 at 6:15 am

Thanks for the tutorial. I wish the guys at WP would learn to write tutorials this simple and concise.
Nishanthan S.

on August 31, 2008 at 12:08 pm

It was really simple to understand. Thanks for the good work. I’m going to start to write a widget now itself. :-)
Steve

on September 9, 2008 at 12:43 pm

Great article thanks. I have used it to code up my own widget that I use to display the latest uploads I do through ShoZu in the sidebar of my wordpress web site.
Travis

on September 17, 2008 at 9:13 pm

Thanks for a great tutorial for beginner plugin developers! Best “first step” resource I could find!
The DarkStar

on September 22, 2008 at 12:37 pm

Penso che ora mi scrivero da solo un widget per il login con tanto di avatar e link utili, grazie dell’articolo ;)
Create a Wordpress MochiAds Leaderboards Widget : Emanuele Feronato

on October 17, 2008 at 1:40 pm

[...] continuing, I suggest you to read How to create a WordPress Widget if you don’t have experience with WP [...]
Yohanes

on October 19, 2008 at 7:16 am

Thank you for the lovely short tutorial.
btw, where could i find the next part??
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on November 5, 2008 at 1:45 am

[...] followed this easy tutorial to make it. It was speedily done, and I hope I can sleep [...]
Amy

on January 5, 2009 at 12:21 am

Cool.. but what about newbies like me? You don’t clarify as to where to paste this code? I can edit what you’ve wrote to fit my needs but how to I create a new php file and such?
jmdelisle.com » Mon premier Widget.

on January 16, 2009 at 9:26 pm

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on January 23, 2009 at 9:52 am

[...] Emanuele Feronato WordPress Widgets [...]
Illysmanx

on January 26, 2009 at 6:33 pm

Thanks for the short tutorial! It’d be lovely if you expanded it, with steps on adding small items like a text box or string like in ‘text box widget, one of the defaults.

Your explanation was a helpful thing. :)
The Cobra

on February 7, 2009 at 8:52 pm

Amy,

I think you just need a basic text editor. On my mac I personally used Aquamacs Emacs, which is great b/c it has a syntax system that works with several languages.

With a basic editor, just save it as .php, or if it auto adds .txt, just rename it to .php.
Nik Daum

on March 12, 2009 at 11:08 am

Thanks so much for the basic code. It really helps me understand what’s going on.
Glenn

on March 15, 2009 at 7:20 pm

You might be interested to know that now you can create a little widget like this in a few minutes. Also the widget you create will be fully themeable.
Check out the little tool I built to create widgets at widgetifyr.com
sasha854

on April 19, 2009 at 7:43 am

Ð–Ð°Ð»ÑŒ Ð½Ðµ Ð¼Ð¾Ðµâ€¦..
mysoogal

on May 7, 2009 at 11:00 pm

hey can you create a ffmpeg upload widget ? im having hardtimes getting things going
QuickInsider

on May 8, 2009 at 4:08 pm

Hi Emanuele,

Great tutorial, I will certainly follow-up with the continuation of this tutorial to be able to create Plugins/Widget that will conform to my specific needs.

Thanks again.
eazeenet

on May 10, 2009 at 5:37 pm

Thanks for such a nice tutorial(simple and sweet).
Daragh

on May 16, 2009 at 2:34 pm

I’ve been trying this code on WP 2.7.1 and am getting the following error:

Warning: Cannot modify header information – headers already sent by (output started at [myhost]/plugins/daragh.php:31)

Does this work with WP 2.7.1? It does show up correctly in Admin -> Widgets and appears to work fine up until I add it to the sidebar and click save – which is where I see the above message.

Oddly enough – it does actually *work* on the page itself, just don’t know why I’m getting the error.
Russell D'Souza

on May 27, 2009 at 11:54 pm

Hi Daragh, I think your problem might be because your php tag doesn’t start on the first line. Make sure you delete blank space before your php tag

I am not sure how to make a file available for download. I found creating widgets is much easier for Blogger and Typepad. For WordPress, what is the code I would need to make my file downloaded from my server.
Manuel Avalos

on May 28, 2009 at 8:22 pm

Very very very good tutorial… tks!!!
smsfame.com

on June 19, 2009 at 9:19 am

I want to create a widget to send sms, for blog. but I want to give this feature only to registered user, how to get registration data? how I check user is loged in or not?
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on July 2, 2009 at 12:58 am

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dijifx

on August 16, 2009 at 8:11 pm

Very nice just the basics! I am interested in learning and this tut didnt go overboard.
David Naian

on August 23, 2009 at 7:06 am

Cool, thanks, it worked just on the first try!!! (WordPress newby)Bye
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Published-Articles

on September 16, 2009 at 12:53 pm

Great tutorial! it’s a big help for sure.

Thanks,
Roger
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on September 21, 2009 at 3:06 pm

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mohit

on November 18, 2009 at 9:37 am

Great tutorial, I will certainly follow-up with the continuation of this tutorial to be able to create Plugins/Widget that will conform to my specific needs.
Francesco

on December 17, 2009 at 11:24 pm

ciao,
io nella sidebar ho due colonne..come ne aggiungo una con larghezza pari a quella totale tra le due?
bharadwaj

on January 11, 2010 at 11:16 am

you are just amazing code junkie… thanks A-LOT for this post
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on March 9, 2010 at 9:51 am

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Sorin

on May 10, 2010 at 11:13 pm

Grazie mille Emanuele. Ho imparato adesso di fare i widgets.
frila

on December 28, 2010 at 6:04 am

thank you very much for this very helpful post
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on January 23, 2011 at 11:35 am

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Muskie

on June 15, 2011 at 6:52 am

Now I need to add admin options, such as CSS styling and passing in a URL…
Arif

on June 18, 2011 at 1:03 pm

Great.. Thanks.
Melissa

on June 23, 2011 at 2:40 am

Excellent Tutorial
Salustiano Muniz

on July 6, 2011 at 10:13 pm

Simple yet useful. Thanks a lot!
John

on July 13, 2011 at 9:12 am

I intuitively closed tabs to other sites regarding this topic and had an inkling that this would be the most helfpul. It was! You succinct explanation was very helpful. Thanks. Very quality. Nice diagram that showed pointing arrows of where each line if code transduced to the wordpress plugin menu. AWESOME!!!!!!!!!
Alex Kolozsy

on August 13, 2011 at 5:04 am

How in the world do you get your WP-PostRatings to work? My stars always come out grainy. What is going on here?
Cory

on October 5, 2011 at 11:19 pm

You can simplify this now by only using the wp_register_sidebar_widget() function. No need for the add_action anymore, depending on what your wanting.

Good post
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This post has 62 comments

Graham Kaemmer

Emanuele Feronato

Graham Kaemmer

EagleVision

bobman

Joe

Travis

Daragh

David Naian

mohit

frila

Arif

Melissa

Salustiano Muniz