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WordPress How to Build a WordPress Plugin Building WordPress Widgets, and Shortcodes How to Create WordPress Widgets

Luke Travis
Luke Travis
2,887 Points
Posted by Luke Travis
Luke Travis
2,887 Points

$instance variable never declared

In the "how to create a widget" video, I don't understand what the initial value of $instance is. What is the value of $instance that is being referenced as an array?

Also it seems to me like the child class of Wp_Widget is constructed but not declared anywhere.

1 Answer

Andrew McCormick
Andrew McCormick
17,730 Points
Andrew McCormick
Andrew McCormick
17,730 Points

according to the codex "register_widget() is located in wp-includes/widgets.php."

and if we look at widgets.php we see on line 42 @param array $instance The settings for the particular instance of the widget and then on line 190 we see $instance assigned a value: $instance = $this->get_settings(); Follow the trail anymore to line 377 and find the get_settings() function.

In other words, $instance holds the settings for a particular widget you are defining or extending.