Title: [Plugin: Section Widget] invert selection
Last modified: August 19, 2016

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# [Plugin: Section Widget] invert selection

 *  [Steve Taylor](https://wordpress.org/support/users/gyrus/)
 * (@gyrus)
 * [16 years, 10 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/plugin-section-widget-invert-selection/)
 * Hey, fantastic plugin, thanks!
 * I just wondered if there’s any plans for a switch to _invert_ your selection,
   e.g. to display on all pages _except_ the ones selected? If there’s just a couple
   of places you don’t want the widget, you can select all the pages except those,
   but then you have to remember to go to all the widgets and select any new pages
   that are created! Or am I missing something?
 * If there’s no plans, I’ll be implementing it myself, will send you the code over…

Viewing 7 replies - 1 through 7 (of 7 total)

 *  Thread Starter [Steve Taylor](https://wordpress.org/support/users/gyrus/)
 * (@gyrus)
 * [16 years, 10 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/plugin-section-widget-invert-selection/#post-1173272)
 * An alternative (or even better another feature) would be to have a “Widget Logic”-
   like option, for developers to include PHP conditional code. It’s so good being
   able to leave much of the choice in a client’s hands, but every now and then 
   there’s a condition that only code can really do without making the interface
   too heavy.
 * Again, happy to contribute code if you’ve no plans for this, just checking.
 *  [godfreykfc](https://wordpress.org/support/users/godfreykfc/)
 * (@godfreykfc)
 * [16 years, 10 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/plugin-section-widget-invert-selection/#post-1173372)
 * Hi gyrus, thanks for the feedback. The biggest motivation for building this plugin
   is to provide an easy way for less technically-knowledgable users to build section-
   specific widgets (such as showing a RSS feed from a movie review sites for posts
   in the “Movies” category). Therefore, my top priority is to deliever a reasonably
   clean and easy to use interface that can address those needs. Building the functionailty
   you proposed into the plugin would probably make the UI more complex than it 
   needs to be – yes I know I’m quite picky 😉 The bottom line is, I simply don’t
   think there is a big enough need for that to outweight to extra complexity added
   to the UI. I could be wrong though, so if you can think of any legimate use cases
   for that feel free to point it out.
 * As for the Widget Logic-style conditional code, I’d strongly retain from doing
   because 1. it’s a potential security breach; 2. it’s far too complicated to be
   useful for my primary target users. More importantly, this plugin is not meant
   to be a replacement for Widget Logic – although I haven’t tested it personally,
   I believe this plugin should work with Widget Logic without any problems, so 
   if that floats your boat, you can always use it in conjunction with Widget Logic.
 * That being said, the plugin is fully open-sourced and GPL-compatible, so if you
   disagree with me or you have a smart idea then feel free to modify and extend
   the plugin. And of course, if that proves me wrong, I’ll be more than happy to
   merge that code into the next version of the plugin!
 * Thanks again for the feedback – really appreaciate that!
 *  [godfreykfc](https://wordpress.org/support/users/godfreykfc/)
 * (@godfreykfc)
 * [16 years, 10 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/plugin-section-widget-invert-selection/#post-1173374)
 * typo fail: …I’d strongly refrain from doing that because…
 *  Thread Starter [Steve Taylor](https://wordpress.org/support/users/gyrus/)
 * (@gyrus)
 * [16 years, 10 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/plugin-section-widget-invert-selection/#post-1173454)
 * Hi Godfrey, thanks for the response.
 * I appreciate the point about Widget Logic – I’m just being picky myself and looking
   for a way of having that functionality too, but just wrapped up in one widget
   with your functionality, and without having another plugin!
 * As for the selection inversion, in terms of legitimate use cases, I encountered
   one as soon as I started using it. A current client wants something in the sidebar
   on all pages except a couple of particular ones. As I said, I could check all
   pages expcept those, but it’s impractical to remember to check a page every time
   a new one’s added.
 * To my mind this would be just an extra checkbox. Or maybe turn the hint “Display
   on these pages” on the Pages tab into a radio input together with the “Display
   on all except these pages” option.
 * I’ll let you know if I find the time to implement it. And thanks again for a 
   great plugin.
 *  [godfreykfc](https://wordpress.org/support/users/godfreykfc/)
 * (@godfreykfc)
 * [16 years, 10 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/plugin-section-widget-invert-selection/#post-1173510)
 * Hi gyrus, just want to clearify my point: the inital goal is to make it easy 
   to display “section-specific” content – i.e. stuff that appears only on certain
   sections. That’s why we went for the whitelist approach instead of the blacklist
   approach that you proposed. I believe there are cases that you would need to 
   display a widget on all except some pages, just that I doubt if they would fall
   into the “section-specfic content” category. However I do agree that there could
   be other possible/potential uses for this plugin, so I won’t mind extending to
   plugin to do those things as well, as long as it’s not going to interfer with
   the primary functionalities.
 * However, there is also something else that I wanted to point out. As you said,
   if you are selecting pages individually, you would have to change the widget 
   settings everytime after adding new pages (although unlike posts, pages should
   be updated a lot less frequently… at least in theory). This would be a problem
   even if we’re using the blacklist approach. (e.g. you want to exclude all sub-
   pages of “Reviews”, then you’d have to change the settings everytime you added
   a new page under reviews…) The only solution to this problem is not to use pages
   selection at all if you expect your site structure to change frequently. Instead,
   you should categorize your pages properly and select the appropiate categories
   in the widget settings. The pages selection menu should be reserved for cases
   that you just need to select a few individual pages (e.g. display contact information
   just on the “About” page…).
 *  Thread Starter [Steve Taylor](https://wordpress.org/support/users/gyrus/)
 * (@gyrus)
 * [16 years, 10 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/plugin-section-widget-invert-selection/#post-1173530)
 * Godfrey, thanks for the detailed information, but the approaches you suggested
   don’t quite dovetail with the site I’m building. But nevermind, as you suggested,
   using Widget Logic as well as Section Widget is covering all eventualities now.
   Thanks again!
 *  [Seabrook Oceanfront Homes For Sale](https://wordpress.org/support/users/thebballkid/)
 * (@thebballkid)
 * [16 years, 6 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/plugin-section-widget-invert-selection/#post-1173686)
 * Gyrys, I dont know if you have solved your problem, but Widget Logic can do what
   you want to do. Here is the explanation:
 * [http://forum.bytesforall.com/showthread.php?t=1837](http://forum.bytesforall.com/showthread.php?t=1837)
 * Hope that helps.

Viewing 7 replies - 1 through 7 (of 7 total)

The topic ‘[Plugin: Section Widget] invert selection’ is closed to new replies.

 * 7 replies
 * 3 participants
 * Last reply from: [Seabrook Oceanfront Homes For Sale](https://wordpress.org/support/users/thebballkid/)
 * Last activity: [16 years, 6 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/plugin-section-widget-invert-selection/#post-1173686)
 * Status: not resolved

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