Getting Started Quickly

The quickest and simplest way to get started is by making sure you have the SiteOrigin Widgets Bundle plugin installed and activated and then cloning our so-dev-examples git repository. In the extend-widgets-bundle plugin (remember to activate it under Plugins), you'll find the Hello World Widget, which can be used as a template. All you need to do is create a copy of the hello-world-widget folder and rename it as follows:

1. Choose an id for your widget. E.g. my-awesome-widget.
2. Copy the hello-world-widget folder and rename it, and the hello-world-widget.php file inside, using your chosen id. E.g. the folder will be my-awesome-widget, and the file will be my-awesome-widget.php. It is important that these are the same.
3. Open the PHP file and rename the class from Hello_World_Widget to a name of your choice. E.g. My_Awesome_Widget
4. In the class' constructor, the first argument to the parent constructor is the widget id. Replace the current value hello-world-widget with your chosen id. E.g. my-awesome-widget.
5. At the bottom of the file, you'll see the widget being registered. Again replace hello-world-widget with your chosen id and replace the class name Hello_World_Widget, with your class name. E.g. my-awesome-widget and My_Awesome_Widget.
6. In the metadata header above the class, change the Widget Name field to your widget name. E.g. Widget Name: My Awesome Widget. This field does not follow any convention, but it must be present for your widget to be included in the list of SiteOrigin widgets.

You should now have a simple, functional widget that you can start changing to create your awesome widget!

Adding a Separate Widgets Folder

If you'd like to keep your widgets separate from the SiteOrigin widgets, we have included a filter hook that you can use to register a folder containing several of your widgets, as follows:

<?php
function add_my_awesome_widgets_collection($folders){
    $folders[] = 'path/to/my/widgets/';
    return $folders;
}
add_filter('siteorigin_widgets_widget_folders', 'add_my_awesome_widgets_collection');

The Widget Bundle plugin code will check subfolders of this folder for PHP files. If it finds any PHP files with a metadata header containing a Widget Name field, it will list them as a widget that can be activated and used anywhere widgets may normally be used.

In our example extend-widgets-bundle plugin, we use the standard WordPress method of creating a plugin, which then uses the above filter hook to add it's extra-widgets folder to the search path for widgets.