Creating a widget for Android from scratch. How to create your own widget in WordPress? Receiving data from the server, _updateData method
We all use widgets in one way or another, because they are the domain of the Android system, even iPhone owners secretly glance at them. What widgets do you use? The clock, the weather – it’s all “business”, right? You probably have Beautiful Widgets, Premium Widgets or similar applications installed. These programs are certainly good, but they don’t allow your creative abilities to run wild. Would you like to create a widget for your smartphone yourself? Then let's see how this can be done using the Editor widgets application.
We take a beautiful background, a large watch dial, the day of the week, but what about without the weather? And we’ll add it to our ideal widget, and for 3 days at once. So, all this and much more can be done using the Editor widgets android app. Let's start creating.
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By default, we have eight widget layouts, choose one and start creating. Here, no one limits us in our possibilities. Choose a background. This can be either a picture or a color fill; you can adjust the transparency of the layer. Choosing a frame. There are quite a lot of them and they are all very beautiful, of course in taste and color... Then we move on to filling our widget. To do this, we have access to various elements: clock, day of the week, date, battery charge in several projections, notifications of missed calls and messages, weather elements. As you understand, the choice is very wide. We take what we need and arrange it the way we need it. We can also change the color of an object and the font style. In general, we create complete beauty, and everyone has their own beauty - after all, we are all unique!
The Editor widgets application creates ideal conditions. Therefore, the result of the work depends only on the flight of our imagination.
Widgets can have different sizes and are scalable.
By the way, in the settings we can select the time and date format. And also set some “action” when you click on the widget. This could include additional information about the state of the phone, or the launch of a pre-selected application, for example, a voice recorder. Or dial a telephone number, which is even more unusual, but perhaps useful to someone.
In general, if you want to create a widget for your Android device, then Editor widgets will be your faithful assistant.
Create WordPress widget– this is approximately how to create a plugin, but much simpler and clearer. All you need is one file with everything PHP code that is much easier to write than a plugin that has several files. There are three main functions of the widget: these are widget, update And form.
- function widget()
- function update()
- function form()
| Download sources |
Basic structure
The basic design of our widget is very simple, there are useful functions that you need to know. The backbone of our widget structure will be something like this:
Add_action("widgets_init", "register_my_widget"); // function to load my widget function register_my_widget() () // function to register my widget class My_Widget extends WP_Widget () () // The example widget class function My_Widget() () // Widget Settings function widget() () // display the widget function update() () // update the widget function form() () // and of course the form for the widget options
Step 1. widget_init
Before we do all this, we need to load our widget using the function widget_init. This is a clue to action, which you can find more information about in the WordPress codex.
Add_action("widgets_init", "register_my_widget");
The next thing we will do is let's register our widget in WordPress so that it is available in the widgets section.
Function register_my_widget() ( register_widget("My_Widget"); )
Step 2. Class
We will enclose our widget in Class. The class name matters! What we have to keep in mind is that the class name and function name must be identical.
Class My_Widget extends WP_Widget()
Now we will pass some options settings. For example, we can send width And height. We can also give a small description to our widget if we want. This will be useful if you associate the widget with your commercial theme.
Function My_Widget() ( function My_Widget() ( $widget_ops = array("classname" => "example", "description" => __("A widget that displays the authors name ", "example")); $control_ops = array("width" => 300, "height" => 350, "id_base" => "example-widget"); $this->WP_Widget("example-widget", __("Example Widget", "example" ), $widget_ops, $control_ops);
Now that we're done with the basic requirements for our widget, we'll turn our attention to three functions, which we talked about earlier and which are important functions or basic blocks for building our widget!
Step 3: function widget()
The first function refers to display our widget. We'll pass on a few arguments into our function. We will pass arguments from the topic, this could be a title or some other parameters. Now we pass the variable instance, which is associated with the class of our function.
Function widget($args, $instance)
After this we extract options from arguments because we need the parameters to be available locally. If you don't know what a local variable is, don't worry about it now and just add this step.
extract($args);
Next we will install title And other parameters for our widget, which can be changed by the user in the widget menu. We also add special variables like $before_widget, $after_widget. These parameters are processed by the theme.
$title = apply_filters("widget_title", $instance["title"]); $name = $instance["name"]; $show_info = isset($instance["show_info"]) ? $instance["show_info"] : false; echo $before_widget; // Display the widget title if ($title) echo $before_title . $title . $after_title; //Display the name if ($name) printf("
" . __("Hey their Sailor! My name is %1$s.", "example") . "
", $name); if ($show_info) printf($name); echo $after_widget;Step 4: function update()
Function update($new_instance, $old_instance) ( $instance = $old_instance; //Strip tags from title and name to remove HTML $instance["title"] = strip_tags($new_instance["title"]); $instance[" name"] = strip_tags($new_instance["name"]); $instance["show_info"] = $new_instance["show_info"]; return $instance; )
One thing to note: here we are using strip_tags to remove all text from XHTML, which may disrupt the operation of our widget.
Step 5: function form()
In the next step we will create form which will serve input block. It will accept user-defined settings and values. Function form may include checkboxes, text input fields, etc.
Before we create these input fields, we need to decide what to show when the user doesn't select anything from the widget. To do this, we will pass default values for the parameters, such as title, description, etc.
//Set up some default widget settings. $defaults = array("title" => __("Example", "example"), "name" => __("Bilal Shaheen", "example"), "show_info" => true); $instance = wp_parse_args((array) $instance, $defaults); ?>
Now we will create text input field. We'll wrap these values in a paragraph tag.
// Widget Title: Text Input
" name="get_field_name("title"); ?>" value="" style="width:100%;" />
//Text Input" name="get_field_name("name"); ?>" value="" style="width:100%;" />
// Checkboxid="get_field_id("show_info"); ?>" name="get_field_name("show_info"); ?>" />
Conclusion
OK it's all over Now. You've just made a cute and simple widget yourself that displays the blog author's name. Moreover, it allows the user to choose whether to show the information to the audience or not. Save the code in PHP file and upload it to your theme folder. Call it in your functions.php. After that, go to the console in Appearance → Widgets and you will see your widget.
All of this code is included in the file attached to the article, making it even easier to copy and paste. Enjoy!
Do you want to create your own widgets in WordPress? Widgets allow you to drag and drop elements into any sidebar or widget area ready for your site. In this article, we will show you how to easily create a custom WordPress widget.
What is a WordPress widget?
WordPress widgets contain code snippets that you can add to your website's sidebars or widget-compatible areas. Think of it as modules that you can use to add different elements using a simple drag-and-drop interface.
By default, WordPress comes with a standard set of widgets that can be used with any WordPress theme.
WordPress also allows developers to create their own widgets. Many WordPress themes and plugins come with their own widgets that you can add to your sidebars.
For example, you can add a contact form, custom login form, or photo gallery to your sidebar without writing any code.
That said, let's see how easy it is to create your own custom widgets in WordPress.
How to Create Your Own Widget in WordPress
This tutorial is for people who have knowledge about web development.
Before you begin, you may want to create a specific plugin on the site where you insert the widget code for this tutorial.
You can also paste the code into your theme's "functions.php" file. However, it will only be available if that particular theme is active.
In this tutorial we will create a simple widget that will simply welcome visitors. Take a look at this code, then paste it into your custom plugin to see it in action.
// Register and load the widget function wpb_load_widget() (register_widget("wpb_widget"); ) Add_action("widgets_init", "wpb_load_widget"); //Creating a widget class wpb_widget extends WP_Widget(__construct() function (parent::__construct(//Base ID of your widget wpb_widget"//widget name will appear in IU __("PCBs Widget""wpb_widget_domain") //description Widget array ("description" => __("Simple WordPress Widget", "wpb_widget_domain"))) // Create a public front end widget function widget($args, $instance)($titles = apply_filters("widget_title" $instance[ "title"]); // before and after widget args are defined by topics echo $args["before_widget"]; if(!empty($title)) echo $args["$title"]. after_title"]; // Here you will run the code and display the output echo __("Simple widget", "wpb_widget_domain"); Echo $ args [ "after_widget"]; ) // Backend widget public function form ($ instance) (if ( Iset ($instance["title"])) ($title = $instance["title"]; ) Else ($title = __("New title", "wpb_widget_domain"); ?) // Widget form admin>
<метка для = "get_field_id("name");>?"> After adding the code you should go to " Appearance > Widgets" You will see a new widget" PCB Widget In the list of available widgets. You must drag this widget to your sidebar. Now when you visit your blog, you will see a widget in the sidebar where you have added the widget in question. Now let's study this code a little. First, we wrote down " wpb_widget And loaded our custom widget. We then defined what the widget does and how to display it on the dashboard. Finally, we've defined how to handle changes made to the widget. Now there are a few things you might want to know. For example, what is the purpose wpb_text_domain«? WordPress uses "gettext" to manage translation and localization. So wpb_text_domain"And __e tells gettext how to get the translation string if it exists. If you're creating a custom widget for your theme, you can replace "wpb_text_domain" with your theme's text field. That's all for this tutorial, I hope it will allow you to create your own widgets on your WordPress blog. In order to make a widget in Android It is not at all necessary to know how to program. There are several design applications that make it easy to draw a widget and give it the desired functionality. The application allows you to create minimalistic widgets consisting of text and numbers. Despite the name, these widgets have very wide capabilities. After installation, add a Minimalistic Text widget of the required size to your desktop. The widget settings window will open. In the settings you can select the background, orientation, font, click action, etc. Also in the settings there are predefined layouts for filling: Additional options for filling the widget are available when creating your own widget layout: All values can be displayed in text and in numbers. This application allows you to make widgets not only from text, but also with graphic content. When launched, the widget creation window opens. To add an object to the widget, click the +/- button at the top. To move and edit it in any way, click on the “Select Object” button at the top and select the added object. You can place the following objects on widgets: Each element can be rotated, stretched, bent and its color changed. Of course, you can configure the click action (Select Object->Hotspots). Import and export of created widgets is supported. Recently I needed to create a gadget for Windows Sidebar. I didn’t have any skills in this, so after googling a little and reading the documentation, let’s get started. I'll show you what I ended up with right away. Weather from Info.Denms.Ru 1.0.1232 Full Weather Widget (Info.Denms.Ru) Let's look at it in more detail. The main.html file is an ordinary html file, I will not list it in full, I will only dwell on some points. The gadget can be in two states – docked (on the left in the screen above), and undocked (on the right). We will store the current state of the gadget in the JavaScript docked variable. We will need the isDocked wrapper function in the future to find out the current state of the gadget from VBScript (no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t implement this in pure VBScript). One more note - the scripts work correctly in this order, i.e. First we describe VBScript scripts, then JavaScript. The remaining elements in main.html are absolutely positioned DIV elements. Subsequently, from scripts we will access them by their id. Using JavaScript, we will set the docked and undocked states for the gadget, and also specify the settings file (main.js) System.Gadget.onDock = resize; System.Gadget.onUndock = resize; System.Gadget.settingsUI = "settings.html"; System.Gadget.onSettingsClosed = SettingsClosed; docked=0; //initial state of the gadget resize(); //initialization As you can see from the listing above, when the gadget states change, the resize() function will be called. Function resize() ( bd = document.body.style; System.Gadget.beginTransition(); if (System.Gadget.docked) ( // small state bd.width=148; // set the gadget size bd.height=201 ; docked = 1; bd.background="url(images/gadget.png) no-repeat"; //set the background //then follows the transfer of values from the undocked state to docked and zeroing the elements for the undocked state document.getElementById("small_needupdate ").innerHTML = document.getElementById("big_needupdate").innerHTML; document.getElementById("big_needupdate").innerHTML = ""; //... ) else ( // big state bd.width=230; bd. height=160; bd.background="url(images/gadgeth.png) no-repeat"; docked=0; //transfer values from docked to undocked and reset elements for docked state document.getElementById("big_needupdate"). innerHTML = document.getElementById("small_needupdate").innerHTML; document.getElementById("small_needupdate").innerHTML = ""; //... ) System.Gadget.endTransition(System.Gadget.TransitionType.morph,1); ) You can also describe the function of saving settings. My gadget doesn’t have them, but as an example I’ll show you how it’s done. Function SettingsClosed(event) ( if (event.closeAction == event.Action.commit) ( //alert System.Gadget.Settings.readString("test"); ) ) ReadString – reads a previously saved string, writeString, respectively, writes. As mentioned above, the server provides us with weather information in xml format. 1.7 41 cloudy snow 87 South-West 5 -3 -1 -1 26 1 -9 41 0 … We will download and parse xml using VBScript. Sub DownloadXML2 Set objXML = CreateObject("Microsoft.XmlHttp") objXML.Open "GET", "http://info.kovonet.ru/weather.xml", True objXML.OnReadyStateChange = GetRef("objXML_onreadystatechange") objXML.setRequestHeader "If-Modified-Since", "Sat, 1 Jan 2000 00:00:00 GMT" objXML.Send iTimeoutID = window.SetTimeout("mySleep", 1000) End Sub The mySleep function will check our connection for a timeout. Sub mySleep if bRespReceived = "false" then "response not yet received iTimeout = iTimeout + 1 if (iTimeout > 30) then "timeout timerFirstRun = window.SetTimeout("Update", 60000) "attempt to re-update in a minute else "timeout yet not reached, continue to count seconds iTimeoutID = window.SetTimeout("mySleep", 1000) end if end if End Sub If the download is successful, objXML.readyState will be equal to four, and status (objXML.status) will return the value 200. Function objXML_onreadystatechange() If (objXML.readyState = 4) Then "msgbox objXML.statusText If (objXML.status = 200) Then bRespReceived=true SaveFile(objXML.responseText) else timerFirstRun = window.SetTimeout("Update", 60000) " attempt to update again in a minute End If End If End Function In this case, save the file to a temporary Windows folder Function SaveFile(what) Set fso = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject") tempFolder = fso.GetSpecialFolder(2) filepath = tempFolder+"\weather.xml" Dim fso1, tf Set fso1 = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject") Set tf = fso1.CreateTextFile(filepath, True, True) "rewrite, unicode tf.Write(what) tf.Close ParseXML End Function And we begin to parse the file. Sub ParseXML Set fso = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject") tempFolder = fso.GetSpecialFolder(2) filepath = tempFolder+"\weather.xml" Set xmlDoc = CreateObject("Msxml2.DOMDocument") xmlDoc.async="false" xmlDoc. load(filepath) "main node – in our case Checking for new versions is done in exactly the same way. Settings That's all, actually. I would be glad if my (first :)) article was useful to someone. Used sources.Minimalistic Text
Ultimate custom widget (UCCW)
The gadget will receive information from the site in xml form, parse it and, in fact, display it. The gadget will also check for new versions, and if they are present, refuse to work :)
Initially, for the sake of gaining experience, I wanted to write a gadget entirely in VBScript (since I had not dealt with it yet), but in the end I had to make inserts in JavaScript.
Let's move directly to the code. I will not review the entire code here, I will only show the main points. The link to the finished gadget is at the end of the article.
The main file of a gadget is its manifest – the Gadget.xml file. It should be called exactly that and located in the root of our archive (the gadget is nothing more than a ZIP archive with the .gadget extension).
Element
Options
The g:background element is used to set the background of the gadget. Let's make it transparent.
Methods System.Gadget.beginTransition(); and System.Gadget.endTransition(); needed for “smooth” resizing of the gadget. They are ignored in Windows Seven, but I still left them for backward compatibility.
Don't forget to create a settings file - settings.html, the existence of which we announced above.
