[wp-trac] [WordPress Trac] #17979: Avoid losing widgets when switching themes

[WordPress Trac]

#17979: Avoid losing widgets when switching themes
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 Reporter:  lancewillett                         |       Owner:
     Type:  enhancement                          |      Status:  new
 Priority:  high                                 |   Milestone:  3.3
Component:  Widgets                              |     Version:  2.9
 Severity:  normal                               |  Resolution:
 Keywords:  ux-feedback has-patch needs-testing  |
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Comment (by trevogre):

 scribu,

 I get that, I think the idea of changing things is to make widgets better.
 I'm suggesting that get them ready for use with a proper methodology would
 be a good idea.

 Right now a theme developer using version control registers the sidebars
 with no control over what the suggested widgets are. So they either have
 to hardcode in basic things like recent posts where they want them and
 sacrifice configurability by the laymen, or not have any suggested items
 in their widget areas.

 It would seem really benificial to be able to register your sidebars,
 which you have to do anyway. And be able to define a configuration array
 to prepopulate the widgets. I'm sure you are right that this is hard,
 right now, but it could be made less so with changes to core.

 Besides which, posts and pages are also for laymen and they have version
 control baked into the dashboard. I can't think of a good reason why
 widgets shouldn't also be first class citizens and get versioning
 somewhere. Other than the effort it would take.

 This is especially important for non-techical people because they are they
 ones that need rollback the most.

 What happens now when you give a client admin access because they want it
 and they think they are smart on go in and change widgets that you
 configured a year ago. Do you really want to rollback to a backup for that
 so you can get the settings back, or have to load up a backup on your
 local machine to snoop the widget configuration on a highly widgetized
 theme. What a drag.

 If widgets are going to stay the way they are now there are more reason to
 not use them then there are to use them, but its hard to reconcile that
 with their existance and ease of use. You want to give clients more
 capability even if it doesn't make sense from a worflow and reliability
 perspective. And even as a dev, you want to be able to use widgets because
 they are easy to use.

 Is there really a reason why they have to be useful only in the most
 narrow of circumstances and can't have versioning for thier settings?

 As an answer to the versioning issue and clutter. The interface could be
 just like the post version interface, with may the addition of the theme
 name as one of the columns. So every time you make changes it versions,
 and everytime you change themes it versions.

 So you wouldn't have the sidebar clutter that some suggested, but you also
 would never loose your settings.

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Ticket URL: <http://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/17979#comment:77>
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