Wordpress Wizards of MeFi, can you help me?

August 17, 2011 4:26 AM

Wordpress.org Links Widget Problem: This seems like it should be relatively easy, but I can't figure it out – Is there a way I can change the titles of the Wordpress Links Widgets (Blogroll) as seen in the admin panel? I'm using many instances of the the links widget for different groups of links (trust me that there's a good reason for this), and currently what I see in my sidebar section in the Widgets area of the admin panel is a column of LINKS, LINKS, LINKS, LINKS, etc., when what I want to see is LINKS Topic A, LINKS Topic B, LINKS Topic C, etc.

The text widget, for example, lets you make your own title, and the widget displays that way in the Admin/Widgets/Sidebar area, so if you have a lot of text widgets in your sidebar, you can easily identify them when editing, deleting or moving them. This kind of functionality would be perfect.

But I can't figure out how to make this – or anything similar that solves the problem – happen, and the Wordpress.org forums haven't offered any solutions. I also so far haven't found a widget that allows renaming other widgets :P, or one that can replace the Wordpress Links widget and show discrete titles in the admin interface.

I need either something that allows me to assign a title (that will show up on the links widget in the interface), or something that will use the link category I've chosen to display in that link widget as the widget title.
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That's my question, and the rest of this is only for those who are super curious about why I want many, many, many, very many links widgets on my sidebar:

I have many, many, many, very many specialty topic pages, and many, many, many, very many matching link categories, and I'm using the Display Widgets plugin that allows me to choose where on the site I want each widget to appear, so I have a page about Dogs, say, and on the Dogs page, I have a blogroll of dog-related links, but it only shows up on the Dogs page, not on other pages, not on the front page, etc.

That's why I need to use one instance of the Links widget to show only the Dogs category of links... and one for each of the other specialty pages that have accompanying specialty linklists.

Now imagine if I were doings link lists for Aardvarks through Zebras... that would be tens of widgets showing up on the sidebar section in the admin panel, all called LINKS... and thus, my problem.

posted by taz to computers & internet (12 answers total)

I don't have full access to my wp sites but can't you change the name of the link category at this page wp-admin/edit-tags.php?taxonomy=link_category ?
posted by Foci for Analysis at 5:06 AM on August 17, 2011

Actually, when you drag the link widget to a sidebar, you should see a dropdown where you can select one or many link categories. Add as many link widgets you need, save and you should see a specific title for each link list.
posted by Foci for Analysis at 5:14 AM on August 17, 2011

Check out this demo wp site (id: admin, pwd: demo123) and the final result.
posted by Foci for Analysis at 5:16 AM on August 17, 2011

If I understand correctly - the problem is not on the blog itself but in the Widgets admin page. He can see Dogs, Cats, Moose on the blog, but in Admin there are 3 widgets all called Links which need to be opened to see which one they are.
posted by jontyjago at 5:19 AM on August 17, 2011

One way round this, which is a little (lot?) more work, would simply to use the Text widget for each section and using HTML create the links manually. Obviously this doesn't use any of the Wordpress Links functionality but does solve the heading problem in the Admin page and visually would look the same.
posted by jontyjago at 5:22 AM on August 17, 2011

Yes jontyjago, you're right, I'm seeing the proper titles on the blog, but I need to see them in the admin interface.

I have used the text widget on another blog for someone who wanted different groups of links to appear differently (some with rss updates, some without), but that was for a reasonable number of links... and in my case here, I'm talking about such a large number of links ultimately, that I really can't handle them manually like that. Some links will appear under several categories, for example.
posted by taz at 5:39 AM on August 17, 2011

Go to the Widgets menu and drag "Custom Menu" over to your widgets. Then, create a custom menu (under Menus) and call it whatever you want. (It prompted me to do this because I hadn't created any menus.) In the admin panel, it will now be called "Custom Menu: Your Title." You can make a custom menu show only links by using the "Custom Links" box on the left of the Menu screen. Go back to the Widgets screen and drag it into the appropriate area.

If any of this doesn't work because you're not using the same theme I am, please let me know and I'll disable it and try again.
posted by IndigoRain at 7:27 AM on August 17, 2011

IndigoRain, this one is soooooo close, but I already gave that a shot; the problem is that it doesn't offer link categories as a field I can put into custom menus. Every link has to be handcrafted this way, and replicated, for those that span categories.

So in my regular links, one particular link for dogs might be assigned several categories: say, "canines," "mammals," "quadrupeds," and "pets"; using the regular Link Widget I can pull it over to the sidebar four times, and by choosing canines, mammals, quadrupeds, and pets, respectively for the link categories of each, that one link will show up on each list – but using the custom menu, I'd have to input that same link by hand four times.

But, yeah, so. so. close.
posted by taz at 7:56 AM on August 17, 2011

also, just so no one thinks I'm totally insane, the stuff I'm dealing with is pages and categories of links for research resources, so there are a lot of pages, a lot of link categories, and a lot of links that span many categories. :)
posted by taz at 8:04 AM on August 17, 2011

So it sounds like you want to see a list of widgets in Appearance > Widgets > Available Widgets that correspond to the categories for your blog?

If I'm understanding that right, then what you need to do is create a new class for each category that extends the WP_Widget_Links. Each one of these then needs to have register_widget() called for it, I think.

Also the best forum I've found for WordPress development is http://wordpress.stackexchange.com/.
posted by artlung at 8:46 AM on August 17, 2011

Actually, I don't need to see a list of widgets that correspond to my link categories (not post categories) in Available Widgets, because the regular links widget allows me to choose my link category. See this image. In the drop-down menu the first choice is "All Links," but instead of "All Links," I could choose any single link category ... but the title as I see it on the sidebar panel of the widgets page in the admin area will still just only say "Links" (and so I have to expand it to see which category has been checkmarked); I just would like it to say ThisCategory Links or Links ThisCategory, or let me title it myself, so I don't end up with 300 widgets showing on my sidebar that all say "Links."

(the stuff beginning with "Show/Hide Widget" in this image is coming from the Display Widgets plugin.)

Stack exchange will be my next stop, artlung; thanks!
posted by taz at 10:18 AM on August 17, 2011

so I don't end up with 300 widgets showing on my sidebar that all say "Links."

urgh.

... so I don't end up with 300 widgets showing on my sidebar in the admin area that all say "Links."

Damn. It's hard enough to make this clear without totally confusing things myself.
posted by taz at 12:59 PM on August 17, 2011