[wp-trac] [WordPress Trac] #27404: Widget Customizer: Allow adding inactive widgets to widget areas

[WordPress Trac]

#27404: Widget Customizer: Allow adding inactive widgets to widget areas
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 Reporter:  westonruter      |       Owner:
     Type:  feature request  |      Status:  new
 Priority:  normal           |   Milestone:  Future Release
Component:  Widgets          |     Version:  3.9
 Severity:  normal           |  Resolution:
 Keywords:  needs-patch      |     Focuses:  ui, javascript
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Comment (by Joel MMCC):

 The better solution here is to implement #19912 (Add Widget Groups and
 Locations). This would allow   sidebars to be managed in the same way that
 nav menus are managed: just as you can change which menu is assigned to a
 given location, so too you should be able to change which group of widgets
 are associated with a given sidebar (widget area).

 I agree with this in principle (and read it when you said the same basic
 thing before). The difference is that that’s more of a long-term, 5.x
 solution, since as far as I know it would require a database schema change
 to implement the concept of “widget groups” as distinct from “widget
 zones.”

 What I was proposing was more of a stop-gap until then, something that
 could be implemented in 4.5, that would require only a UI change without
 any change at all to the database schema. And even it would have some use
 once the widget groups are implemented in, say, 5.0, as the drop-down
 could be used to quickly move a whole group of widgets from one zone to
 another from within the Customizer in Live Preview mode on an inactive
 theme.

 As my boss often says, “don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.”

 Another aspect would be to perhaps change how widgets are handled when the
 theme is changed and the new theme lacks the same widget zones as the
 prior theme. At present, it seems that WordPress assigns widgets to what
 it thinks is the closest matching zone in the new theme, which could cause
 some horizontal-aspect  widget designed for a Header or Above/Below
 Content zone to wind up in a sidebar. Instead, if there is no closely
 matching zone name whose nature is obvious, widgets (and groups once those
 exist) should be assigned to Inactive Widgets (widget trash). Perhaps the
 schema for widget zones should include a field for the aspect of the zone
 (landscape, portrait, square, unspecified [default]) and its minimum width
 to help WordPress determine whether it can safely move widgets into a
 zone.

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Ticket URL: <https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/27404#comment:7>
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