Plugin upgrading: Widget settings

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I’ve did a quick test on just changing the option and it seems to work.

What I did is:

  1. Wrote a widget that has just 2 fields: “Title” and “Name”. Add several instances of this widget to my sidebars. Been sure that they are shown correctly in frontend.
  2. Edited the class to use 3 fields: “Title” and “First Name” (to replace “Name”) and added “Last Name”.

  3. Edited the function that register the widget on 'widgets_init' to call a function that update the widget options:

    add_action( 'widgets_init', 'my_example_widget_register' );

function my_example_widget_register() {

  $widget_name="my_example_widget";  // <-- You will probably replace this

  $options = get_option("widget_{$widget_name}");

  // if the widget is not updated, run a function that updates it
  if ($options && ! get_option("is_{$widget_name}_updated")) {
      // use class below to update options
      $updater = new MyExampleWidgetUpdater($widget_name, $options);
      $updater->update();
  }

  register_widget('My_Example_Widget'); // <-- You will probably replace this
}

  4. Wrote a simple class to update widget options:

    class MyExampleWidgetUpdater
{

  private $name;
  private $options;

  public function __construct($name, $options) {
     $this->name = $name;
     $this->options = $options;
  }

  public function update() {
    // loop all the options
    array_walk($this->options, function(&$option, $key) {
        if (is_array($option) && is_numeric($key)) {
          $option = $this->getOption($option);
        }
    });
    // update all options in DB
    update_option("widget_{$this->name}", $this->options);
    // set the widget as updated
    update_option("is_{$this->name}_updated", 1);
  }

  private function getOption($options) {
    if (!isset($options['name'])) {
       return $options;
    }
    $options['first_name'] = $options['name'];
    $options['last_name'] = '';
    unset($options['name']);
    return $options;
  }
}

  5. I edited the widget class to save the option "is_{$widget_name}_updated" inside the update() method, in this way the updater class will never be called for new users that never installed old widget

    class My_Example_Widget {

    ...

    public function update($new_instance, $old_instance) {
        ...

        $widget_name="my_example_widget";
        update_option("is_{$widget_name}_updated", 1);
    }
}

  6. I visited my site and the widgets saved with old options are displayed with no issue using new options. (Of course “last name” is always empty).

A good idea may be replace the "is_{$widget_name}_updated" option, with an option that store the actual version of the widget, in this way it will be handy next time you need an update.

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