Skip to content
← Back to lesson index

A Complete Guide to Making Your First WordPress Widget

    Key Takeaways:

    Registering new widgets is a complex process. It may be undertaken in a theme or a plugin, depending on whether the widget is primarily presentational or functional.
    The Widgets API is object-oriented. Every new widget adds its functionality by extending a base class, called WP_Widget.
    The key functions in widget creation include: __construct(), which sets the widget's base variables; form(), which creates user-editable variables for the widget; update(), which allows the widget to be updated with new user-submitted variables; and widget(), which prints out the widget's code as HTML.

    Widgets are a powerful part of WordPress, that make adding custom functionality to defined areas simple and user-friendly. In this chapter, we'll describe the process of registering your own widgets for use.

    Deciding Whether to Register Widgets through a Theme or Plugin
    Widgets can be sanely registered in two places:

    Your theme's functions.php
    A custom plugin

    Widgets often straddle ...