Adding a Custom Widget to Your Theme

Your theme can ship its own widgets, which users get when they install the Widgets Bundle. To change one of our existing widgets, follow Extending Existing Widgets.

Creating a Widgets Folder

Create a folder in your theme for your widgets, such as widgets, and register it as a Widgets Bundle folder. Add this function to your theme's functions.php file:

function wbexample_add_widget_folders( $folders ) {
    $folders[] = get_template_directory() . '/widgets/';
    return $folders;
}
add_filter( 'siteorigin_widgets_widget_folders', 'wbexample_add_widget_folders' );

The function tells the Widgets Bundle to look for widgets in the widgets folder of the theme.

Adding a Widget to the Folder

This example builds a staff widget. Create a simple-staff-widget folder with a simple-staff-widget.php file in it, and add tpl, styles and assets folders as your widget needs them.

widgets/
└── simple-staff-widget/
    ├── assets/
    │   └── banner.svg
    ├── styles/
    │   └── default.less
    ├── tpl/
    │   └── base.php
    └── simple-staff-widget.php

Creating a Widget, HTML Templates and LESS Stylesheets explain each part of the widget.

Activating Your Widget

New widgets start inactive. Users can activate your widget at Plugins > SiteOrigin Widgets, or your theme can activate it with the activate_widget() method of SiteOrigin_Widgets_Bundle:

function wbexample_activate_bundled_widgets() {
    // Stop if the Widgets Bundle isn't active.
    if ( ! class_exists( 'SiteOrigin_Widgets_Bundle' ) ) {
        return;
    }
    if ( ! get_theme_mod( 'bundled_widgets_activated' ) ) {
        if ( SiteOrigin_Widgets_Bundle::single()->activate_widget( 'simple-staff-widget' ) ) {
            set_theme_mod( 'bundled_widgets_activated', true );
        }
    }
}
add_action( 'admin_init', 'wbexample_activate_bundled_widgets' );

This function activates the widget in the simple-staff-widget folder on admin_init. activate_widget() takes the widget's folder name as its ID. A theme mod records the activation, so the function stops running once the widget is active.