With the WordPress 5.8 release last week, and the new Block Editor based Widgets panel, most plugins with widgets were broken. I have already released multiple plugin updates last week, and today all bbPress plugins with widgets are updated.
If you want to read more about the problems the new Widgets panel caused, check out the previous post on this blog: Widgets Panel with Block editor. This post includes all relevant information about the Widgets panel problems, and my recommendation stands: don’t use the Blocks Widgets panel, switch back to the Classic Widgets.
Today, updates have been released for:
- GD bbPress Toolbox Pro, version 6.5.1
- GD Topic Polls Pro, version 3.3.3
- GD Topic Prefix Pro, version 3.1.2
- GD Members Directory, version 2.1.2
Updates are solving the following Widgets with Blocks Editor related issues:
- Widgets don’t load and show error on the panel: all plugins were affected by this, because new panel does things in the wrong way without using proper admin side page context, and my plugins were not loading some of the code needed.
- Styling for the widgets interface: all plugins were affected by this too, and now, there is updated styling to make widgets look as they were before.
What these updates don’t fix (and will not fix):
- Previews in many cases don’t work: the reason for this is the context of the widget preview, and it is impossible to get the proper context inside the Widgets Panel on the admin side, and widget content can be visible on the frontend only in the proper context.
- Some errors during the widgets saving: this is caused by the errors in WordPress 5.8 and the Legacy Widget. Until there is the fix for the Legacy Widget to solve the issue with the saving, you might see some warnings in the error log. I can’t fix these because it would break my plugins, and the problem is caused by the WordPress, not my plugin. Once the WordPress is properly updated, I will revisit this issue again, and make the changes.
- Some settings might not save: due to the major bug in the WordPress 5.8 Legacy Widget, saving process for the widget is fired more than once with improper passing of instance settings.
The only way to avoid issues is to disable Block Editor powered Widgets Panel and use Classic Widgets. There is a good chance that current issues with the new panel will take a while to be fixed, and it might not even happen in the next few months.
To see the list of all the changes, please check out the changelogs for: GD bbPress Toolbox Pro, GD Members Directory for bbPress, GD Topic Polls Pro for bbPress, GD Topic Prefix Pro for bbPress. If you find any issues, please, report them in the support forums for: GD bbPress Toolbox Pro, GD Members Directory for bbPress, GD Topic Polls Pro for bbPress, GD Topic Prefix Pro for bbPress.
Hi.
Thanks for your hard work, detailed explanations and quick updates.
Gutenberg continues to be a nightmare for users in my opinion and should still be off by default and only turned on by experienced users who are willing to take the risk with what is really still beta software.
I continue to use the disable gutenberg plugin which now also has the option to turn off the new widgets so saving you an extra plugin.
I really don’t understand all the hype over Gutenberg compared to vastly more advanced and error free page builders such as Beaver Builder Pro and Elementor Pro.
Gutenberg makes so many promises but you end up needing to install lots of addon plugins to adjust settings, add more blocks etc and that was what they initially claimed to be avoiding – a true core solution – but page builders are still way more comprehensive and easier for most to use.
Dale.