Tom

Thanks @xkon

I don’t mind managing things with a plugin that creates the widgets, rather than editing the functions.php directly.

I’ve run into another issue. I’d like to register more than one Widget using my plugin – one widget for a square ad and one for a rectangle ad.

I’ve tried editing the plugin code to do so, but can’t figure it out – it either gives me a white screen or disables both widgets. If you could give me any clues on this I would be very grateful!

This is my plugin code (edited from a tutorial):

<?php
/*
Plugin Name: Mongoose Ad Widget
Description: Allows insertion of article specific ads into sidebar
*/
/* Start Adding Functions Below this Line */
 

// Register and load the widget
function wpb_load_widget() {
    register_widget( 'mongoose_ad_square_widget' );
}
add_action( 'widgets_init', 'wpb_load_widget' );
 
// Creating the widget 
class mongoose_ad_square_widget extends WP_Widget {
 
function __construct() {
parent::__construct(
 
// Base ID of your widget
'mongoose_ad_square_widget', 
 
// Widget name will appear in UI
__('Mongoose Ad - Square', 'wpb_widget_domain'), 
 
// Widget description
array( 'description' => __( '340x295 ad for Mongoose Article sidebar', 'wpb_widget_domain' ), ) 
);
}
 
// Creating widget front-end
public function widget( $args, $instance ) {

// This is where you run the code and display the output
echo $args['after_widget'];

global $wp_query;
$postid = $wp_query->post->ID;

echo '<div style="margin-bottom:30px;">';

echo get_post_meta($postid, 'article_advert', true);

echo '</div>';

wp_reset_query();

}

// Widget Backend 
public function form( $instance ) {
if ( isset( $instance[ 'title' ] ) ) {
$title = $instance[ 'title' ];
}
else {
$title = __( 'New title', 'wpb_widget_domain' );
}
// Widget admin form
?>
<p>
<label for="<?php echo $this->get_field_id( 'title' ); ?>"><?php _e( 'Title:' ); ?></label> 
<input class="widefat" id="<?php echo $this->get_field_id( 'title' ); ?>" name="<?php echo $this->get_field_name( 'title' ); ?>" type="text" value="<?php echo esc_attr( $title ); ?>" />
</p>
<?php 
}
     
// Updating widget replacing old instances with new
public function update( $new_instance, $old_instance ) {
$instance = array();
$instance['title'] = ( ! empty( $new_instance['title'] ) ) ? strip_tags( $new_instance['title'] ) : '';
return $instance;
}
} // Class wpb_widget ends here

 
/* Stop Adding Functions Below this Line */
?>

Thank you! Any questions please ask 🙂

Hey @xkon thanks for your reply. You’ve got it exactly!

My theme allows me to add custom meta fields to each post so I assume I just need to create my own sidebar widget that can read this meta data?

If you could give me some guidance that would be great! I have some experience editing WP code so should be able to understand… 🙂