More WordPress Extensibility That Should Come As Standard: Enhanced Text Widget

Last week I featured Super RSS Reader, which in a nutshell, took the basic RSS feed widget and made it better. Such plugins have often proven to push the boundaries of standard WordPress functionality. The plugin I am featuring today may well do so itself.

Text Widget Woes

The text widget is a handy little feature that many people use on their WordPress blogs. As you might guess from the name, it allows you to display text in any widgetized area.

But unfortunately your customization options are somewhat limited. Although you can style the text with HTML and CSS, it can be temperamental at times. Furthermore, PHP coding is a total no go.

The text widget is an excellent tool for those who want a “shell” that they can populate and place in a simple fashion. But if you want greater control over what is displayed and how, it can be a little limiting.

Enter Enhanced Text Widget

Enhanced Text Widget aims to give you more control over your text widgets. The widget itself offers some extra options:

First of all, you can easily turn the widget’s title into a hyperlink. You can also define a CSS class for the widget itself (this is extremely useful if you don’t like the way in which the theme’s widgets are styled as standard).

But there is actually a little more to this plugin than meets the eye. Although WordPress allows the use of HTML, CSS and JavaScript in standard text widgets, it will strip out any active code (including PHP). That is not the case with Enhanced Text Widget – it allows the use of HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Flash and/or PHP.

Download Enhanced Text Widget here.

Tags:

• widgets