While editing widgets in accessibility mode the position can be indicated by widget titles instead of numbers

[mark-k]

Guess it title says it all. Right now you need to figure out the position you want the widget to be at and try remember it while editing the widget.

I suggest to change the text text of the position column header from "position" to "position after" and use labels in the drop down

1 => "top"

2 => top widget title

3 => second widget title

etc

[_Redd]

Hi mark-k, you may be interested in a related development here: #14045

[afercia]

Not all users know this alternate mode so basically we're speaking about this, see in the screenshot below:

This alternate screen can be enabled toggling the link "Enable/Disable accessibility mode" in the Screen Options. When reordering the widget position the select shows just numbers. It's difficult to remember the actual widgets position in each sidebar.

By the way, not all widgets have "titles" to show, several instances of the same widgets can be used on the sidebars, etc. Widgets do always have a widget type "name" though and we could at least add the widget type name. Additionally, the selects the edited widget is not assigned to, should have an empty, available, select option with some proper text, e.g. "Available position".

This screen could receive some UI tweaking too, for example I don't see any reason why the content should be centered, unless I'm missing something.

[afercia]

A very fist pass, to get something like in the screenshot below. Any improvements and patches welcome :)

Couple of notes:

• the option text should be shorter
• noticed there's no "Cancel" button to cancel editing and go back to the Widgets screen

[afercia]

Refreshed patch, coding standards, better variable names. Would appreciate a review.

[afercia]

Related: #36772. Needs to take care of the case of a widget from a disabled plugin that still has its "position" in the sidebar.

[Mte90]

fix also #36772

[Mte90]

Respect to the patch of @afercia contain:

• In the select of the widget for the area if the widget not exist anymore (because remove like a plugin), that position is removed from the ui (added a new loop to add an empty option field)
• On the save of the widgets of that sidebar now there is a check to detect if that widget is registered, in case it is removed from the db so in the next editing of that sidebar this problem don't happen again (like for the classic editing with drag & drop)

With this implementation fix also the #36772.

[chriscct7]

Punting per discussion

[jorbin]

The patch needs to be refreshed to follow the coding standards and also needs some additional testing with various AT.

[afercia]

In addition to some coding standards, there are some edge cases to check. While testing a bit, noticed there are cases where you can get more than one available empty position, see in the screenshot below:

It seems to me this happens because some registered widgets have a hyphen in their name, for example recent-comments-1, recent-posts-1 so the patch fails when trying to get the widgets base id. I guess this is the reason why a few line below the base id is built first exploding in "pieces" the widget id and then re-adding the pieces together after removing the last piece.

Noticed also some widgets "disappearing" from their sidebar box, I guess because of the same issue, but I'd greatly appreciate some more eyes on the patch :)

[afercia]

Refreshed patch:

• some coding standards
• account for widgets IDs with a hyphen when getting the base ID

I'd really appreciate a couple more things here:

• more meaningful variable names (though this could imply some refactoring)
• a complete review :)

[afercia]

Just tested again and this still needs to take into account the case of a widget from a disabled plugin that still has its "position" in the sidebar. To reproduce, activate a plugin that provides a widget, for example "Monster Widget" or the "Link Manager" plugin. Then add its widget to a sidebar, deactivate the plugin, and the sidebar will have an additional, empty, position available. Punting for now, if a refreshed patch comes to light in the next couple days please do feel free to move this back in the 4.7. milestone.

[Mte90]

I added a little check to avoid double available position on the patch with 23328.2.diff

[afercia]

Let's establish a test case:

• put let's say 3 widgets in a sidebar
• install ​https://wordpress.org/plugins/monster-widget/
• go to the Widgets screen and enable the "accessibility mode"
• activate the Monster Widget plugin and add its widget as 4th one in the sidebar
• go back to Plugins and deactivate the Monster Widget plugin
• go to the Widgets screen again and edit one of the 3 widgets
• you will see there's a 4th available, empty, position that shouldn't be there

[aaroncampbell]

In 39760:

Add nonce for widget accessibility mode.

Props vortfu.

See #23328.

[aaroncampbell]

In 39761:

Add nonce for widget accessibility mode.

Props vortfu.

See #23328.

Merges [39760] to 4.7 branch.

[aaroncampbell]

In 39762:

Add nonce for widget accessibility mode.

Props vortfu.

See #23328.

Merges [39760] to 4.6 branch.

[aaroncampbell]

In 39763:

Add nonce for widget accessibility mode.

Props vortfu.

See #23328.

Merges [39760] to 4.5 branch.

[aaroncampbell]

In 39764:

Add nonce for widget accessibility mode.

Props vortfu.

See #23328.

Merges [39760] to 4.4 branch.

[aaroncampbell]

In 39765:

Add nonce for widget accessibility mode.

Props vortfu.

See #23328.

Merges [39760] to 4.3 branch.

[aaroncampbell]

In 39766:

Add nonce for widget accessibility mode.

Props vortfu.

See #23328.

Merges [39765] to 4.2 branch.

[aaroncampbell]

In 39767:

Add nonce for widget accessibility mode.

Props vortfu.

See #23328.

Merges [39765] to 4.1 branch.

[aaroncampbell]

In 39768:

Add nonce for widget accessibility mode.

Props vortfu.

See #23328.

Merges [39765] to 4.0 branch.

[aaroncampbell]

In 39769:

Add nonce for widget accessibility mode.

Props vortfu.

See #23328.

Merges [39765] to 3.9 branch.

[aaroncampbell]

In 39770:

Add nonce for widget accessibility mode.

Props vortfu.

See #23328.

Merges [39765] to 3.8 branch.

[aaroncampbell]

In 39771:

Add nonce for widget accessibility mode.

Props vortfu.

See #23328.

Merges [39765] to 3.7 branch.

[afercia]

Let's try this (again) for the next release :)

[Mte90]

Replying to afercia:

Let's establish a test case:

• put let's say 3 widgets in a sidebar
• install ​https://wordpress.org/plugins/monster-widget/
• go to the Widgets screen and enable the "accessibility mode"
• activate the Monster Widget plugin and add its widget as 4th one in the sidebar
• go back to Plugins and deactivate the Monster Widget plugin
• go to the Widgets screen again and edit one of the 3 widgets
• you will see there's a 4th available, empty, position that shouldn't be there

I tried right now and as I can see following this steps I see 4 (available position).
Looking on empty sidebar this is the right behaviour with an Number (available position).

[afercia]

this is the right behaviour

No, when there are 3 active widgets, there are 3 available positions. When adding a 4th widget, there are 4 available positions. After deactivating the Monster Widget, there should be just 3 available positions instead of 4.

However, I can't replicate this inconsistency on trunk any longer, while it can still be replicated on 4.8.2. I guess something was auto-magically fixed with the latest changes to the widgets, it would be nice to know _what_ changed :)

[afercia]

This change should be investigated a bit: https://core.trac.wordpress.org/changeset/41555

[Mte90]

Probably this lines do the magic:
`
Discard invalid, theme-specific widgets from sidebars.
$sidebars_widgets = _wp_remove_unregistered_widgets( $sidebars_widgets, $registered_widgets_ids );
$sidebars_widgets = wp_map_sidebars_widgets( $sidebars_widgets );
`

So probably this code actually is not necessary because somewhere there are new methods that clean up for wrong widgets.

[afercia]

I'm afraid after the recent changes in [41555] and [41594] the current patch doesn't work as expected. In some cases, I see one available position less than expected.

To my understanding, the recent changes to the widgets already take care of discarding invalid/orphaned widgets from the sidebars. Haven't checked in depth but I think now there's only the need to associate the available positions with the name of the widgets they're assigned to.

Note: At the time of writing this, there's only one week available for enhancements for 4.9 before Beta 1.

[Mte90]

I tried right now the patch and seems that is working (tried with a plugin and different widgets).
I am not sure what are the next steps, the (available position) need to became (available position for: {Widget name})?

[afercia]

@mte90 test a bit more please, I've just tried (again) and after I play a bit adding and removing widgets, here's what happens for me. Two active widgets in a sidebar:

edit one of them and... position 2 should not be "available" but should be labeled with the Search widget:

[afercia]

Beta 1 is in 2 days. Punting as per today's a11y bug scrub.

[Mte90]

Maybe a way to fix in all the situation is use _wp_remove_unregistered_widgets on uninstall a plugin or theme but this will not affect on deactive plugins.

[afercia]

As noted in the ​Gutenberg Phase 2 post, the wp-admin Widgets screen will be reworked to use blocks as Widgets. See ​https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/13204

Hopefully, the new user interface will be designed with accessibility in mind from the beginning and finally WordPress will be able to remove the alternate "accessibility mode" used in the current Widgets screen. Serving the same (accessible) content to all users is always the best option.

I'm going to close this ticket as "wontfix". Sorry for the lack of a more proper keyword (a "replaced by" keyword would be more appropriate). Thanks everyone for the explorations and patches here. Tickets can always be reopened and discussion can continue on closed tickets.