This plugin hasn’t been tested with the latest 3 major releases of WordPress. It may no longer be maintained or supported and may have compatibility issues when used with more recent versions of WordPress.

Classic Text Widget

Description

Brings back the classic WordPress text widget without TinyMCE. This is based on the code from WordPress Ver. 4.7.5

Functionality is exactly the same as the pre-version 4.8 text widget. Additional default functionality includes shortcode execution and custom class filter.

Note: This widget uses PHP namespaces to prevent conflicts with other widgets of a similar nature. PHP namespaces are only supported in PHP Version 5.3.0 and higher. If your site uses a PHP version earlier than 5.3.0, do not install this widget unless your PHP version is upgraded first.

Screenshots

  • Classic Text Widget on WordPress Admin Appearance/Widgets menu
  • Classic Text Widget added to Primary Sidebar

Installation

  1. Activate the plugin through the ‘Plugins’ menu in WordPress

FAQ

Do the original text widget filters work with the Classic Text Widget?

Yes and no. Filters that apply to the widget title remain the same to maintain compatibility across WordPress. Filters that apply to to the widget’s content now use add_filter(‘classic_widget_text’, ‘my_function’)

Does the plugin support shortcodes?

Yes, out of the box. To disable shortcode support, add remove_filter( ‘classic_widget_text’, ‘do_shortcode’ ) to your theme’s function file.

Does the plugin directly execute PHP?

No, it does not directly support executing PHP. The widget does support shortcodes however. If you want to execute PHP in this widget, write your code as a shortcode and it will run.

I have a lot of text widgets on my site, is there a way to bulk transfer the content from the new WordPress text widget and place it into the Classic Text Widget?

Yes, but you have to be very careful and do it with SQL. See this post for details about how to bulk replace.

Reviews

September 12, 2017
The default text widget broke my shortcodes. Thanks for providing an easily solution!
July 20, 2017
I was about to make this exact plugin. Thank you for putting this together. Works perfectly!
July 15, 2017
This bug in WP core and then this fix encompases all that is bad and all that is good about WP.
July 3, 2017
Cheers for the plugin. As much as I like visual editor functionality brought to widgets in WP 4.8, we DO need that classic functionality as well! Hope they will fix it one way or another in some WP 4.8.1 or something... So again, big thanks for the plugin!
Read all 15 reviews

Contributors & Developers

“Classic Text Widget” is open source software. The following people have contributed to this plugin.

Contributors

“Classic Text Widget” has been translated into 3 locales. Thank you to the translators for their contributions.

Translate “Classic Text Widget” into your language.

Interested in development?

Browse the code, check out the SVN repository, or subscribe to the development log by RSS.

Changelog

1.0.2

Bumped “Tested up to” tag

1.0.1

Added filter so you can provide your own custom class for the widget. If you choose not to create your own class, the default secondary class is custom-classic-textwidget.

Usage:

add_filter( ‘classic_text_widget_class’, ‘my_classic_text_widget_class’ );
function my_classic_text_widget_class( $class ) {
return ‘my_classic_text_widget_class’;
}

1.0.0

  • Initial commit based on WordPress 4.7.5 Text Widget and plugin conversion by carasmo
  • Restores the pre 4.8 Classic WordPress text widget just like the good old days.