When building sites, you occasionally need to create small blocks of content that can be…
Widgetized sidebars can go anywhere, and in some cases, you may want to use them somewhere other than your sidebar. This means you may want to get some advanced functionality out of it. Black Studio TinyMCE Widget gives you a new widget option, a visual WYSIWYG editor, just like you’d see in the WordPress post editor.
What’s It Do?
TinyMCE Widget adds a new widget to the admin menu called “Visual Editor.” Using this widget will bring up a replica of the WordPress post editor right from your Widget menu, meaning you can do anything you can do in posts and pages. This includes uploading images and media through the media uploader, accessing the TinyMCE toolbar, advanced formatting, and toggling between the Visual and Text editor. Data is stored in your database as HTML and then output to your widgetized sidebar like any other piece of content. There are no settings for the plugin, just turn it on and it works.
How’s It Work?
After you install and activate the plugin, it will add a new widget for you to access. If you go to Appearance -> Widgets you will see a new one added to the list labeled “Visual Editor.” Drag this widget item to any widgetized sidebar on the right, and TinyMCE Widget will open up the WYSIWYG Editor.
Drag the Visual Editor widget like any other
This editor should be immediately familiar to users of WordPress since it replicates the WordPress post editor. Any buttons that you have added to the editor will be there, alongside “Add Media”, and the full TinyMCE toolbar will be shown. At the top, you will see a tab to toggle between the Visual and Text editor if you would also like to edit the HTML source.
Just like the WordPress editor
Other common features of the WordPress post editor are also supported, such as editing in fullscreen mode, live previews in the theme customizer and the media uploader. Simply add the content you want, click the “Save” button, and it will appear in your sidebar just like any other widget content. If you want to remove the functionality, simply deactivate the plugin. Just note that any content you created in the Visual Editor widget will be removed if the plugin is deactivated.
Costs, Caveats, Etc.
Black Studio TinyMCE Widget is completely free and a well-maintained plugin. If you are having any problems with it, you can visit the support forums to get plenty of help from the plugin developers and community.
