Genesis Featured Widget Amplified — Dead Plugin?

[Jami Howard Mays]

I've been noticing more and more lately that some of the functions I've counted on with the Genesis Featured Widget Amplified plugin aren't working for me anymore... Excluding categories, make titles clickable... Even just selecting options within the widget is difficult because the drop downs won't stay open when you click on them.

It hasn't been updated since 05/2012 and I'm wondering if it's a dead plugin and Nick the Geek isn't planning on doing anything with it in the future. If so, what would you guys suggest I use instead? The regular Genesis Featured Widget is not nearly robust enough to do what I want.

I know that Nick is a moderator here and a support responder, so I'm hoping I can get a reply from him. I've tried contacting him via his website (twice) and have never received a reply.

---

Jami Howard Mays, HBIC, Imaj Works | Athens, Georgia

http://wordpress.org/plugins/genesis-featured-widget-amplified/

[CathyEarle]

Just noticed the same thing. Really need to use this plugin to make the title of the post link and have it be above the image rather than below. If there is another way of doing this great but at the moment I am having the same issue. The drop downs wont stay open.

[Summer]

Is the dropdown selector behavior in the widget something that's happening in WP 3.7, or with some other plugin mucking things up for you?

I ask because I haven't seen this behavior, so I'm curious.

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WordPress / Genesis Site Design & Troubleshooting: A Touch of Summer | @SummerWebDesign
Slice of SciFi | Writers, After Dark

[Jami Howard Mays]

No. I've seen the behavior since 3.6, maybe earlier, but I can't be sure of that. I've tried it with a fresh install, no other plugins and with genesis and no child themes... It's buggy.

I keep thinking that maybe, since Nick hasn't updated it in forever, that it's something that is going to be incorporated into the framework... It's surely a disappointment.

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Jami Howard Mays, HBIC, Imaj Works | Athens, Georgia

[bandj]

@cathyearle

you can put the headline over the featured post as I did here http://wetnosepatrol.com

I followed this http://sridharkatakam.com/customize-output-genesis-featured-posts-widget/

go to the gist and download the 2 files, put them in a folder and ftp the folder. You'll see the plugin on the plugins folder
but there isn't a widget, it just does it automatically.

[CathyEarle]

I use a PC to work on my websites which is where I was having the issue with the widget - when I make the changes using my MacBook Pro (I tied this last night at home) I don't have any issues with changing the widget options? I use Google Chrome on both PC and Mac.

Is it possible that the PC is causing the drop downs in the widgets to not function properly?

[KeithAdv]

Interesting theory. I may grab my partner's Mac and try. I have the same problem on PC and I just keep hammering each drop down until it "takes" my option.

If Nick has given up on the plugin, I do hope someone takes ownership of it. It is SO useful!

[Ben Siegfried]

I'm having the same problems on a PC. I haven't tried repeating the problems on a Mac however.

I too wish Nick would pick it up again. I have tried two separate times to email him directly about the issues with two different email addresses that are legit in appearance, and apparently his website is blocking them now. I haven't received a response from him. Odd.

If someone knows him, please let him know that he is letting down a lot of people right now. This is a great widget and it needs to be picked up again and have these issues resolved.

[CathyEarle]

Hope it works for you. Definitely saved me I really needed that plugin to work.

[Ben Siegfried]

Well in addition to the buggy menus within it, it breaks Agency-Pro's homepage, doesn't work with the setup of that page.

Bummer.

I wish Studiopress would create their own version of Nick's plugin, the extended functionality of Nick's plugin is wonderful.

Are you listening Studiopress?

[Jami Howard Mays]

I've tweeted at Nick with a link to this post.

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Jami Howard Mays, HBIC, Imaj Works | Athens, Georgia

[Ben Siegfried]

I think he may not be involved with Studiopress, that's my guess. May I suggest you also contact Studiopress and ask them to improve the featured post widget they offer or take over Nick's since he isn't apparently supporting it. I asked Studiopress something of the sort.

[Summer]

Interesting. I have not seen this behavior, and I have almost all my sites running 3.6.1 with a couple running 3.7.1, with a mix of Genesis 1.9.2 and 2.0.1, and this is something I've never seen with GFWA.

I'm using Chrome and Firefox on a Mac, and I'm currently using it without incident on sites running Backcountry, Metro, News.

I was going to use it on a new site running Executive Pro, but it was making the post titles way too big... and come to think of it, there was a weird thing where if I clicked open a dropdown to configure something, it would immediately and automatically try to save the change even though I hadn't made it yet.

So if the little grey circle that pops up when you normally click "Save" on a widget was showing up the instant a dropdown menu in the GWFA config, I think that's the slamming shut of the dropdowns you're seeing... if your widget saves/updates fast, it does so before you can actually select the option you want.

I have seen something similar, but it was with a different plugin, and the culprit turned out to be another plugin, but the scenario is vague for me now, but that smells like a jQuery fail of some sort.

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WordPress / Genesis Site Design & Troubleshooting: A Touch of Summer | @SummerWebDesign
Slice of SciFi | Writers, After Dark

[Summer]

I'm 99% sure this is a jQuery problem.

In widget.php, find this snippet (towards the end of the file)

        add_action( 'admin_print_footer_scripts', 'gfwa_form_submit' );

        function gfwa_form_submit() {
?>
            <script type="text/javascript">

                (function(a) {
                    a('select.widget-control-save').live('change', function(){
                        wpWidgets.save( a(this).closest('div.widget'), 0, 1, 0 );
                        return false;
                    });
                })(jQuery);

            </script>
<?php
        }

Remove this, and the weird behavior with the dropdowns and the widget settings saving too soon stops. It stopped on a test site I tried it out on, anyway.

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WordPress / Genesis Site Design & Troubleshooting: A Touch of Summer | @SummerWebDesign
Slice of SciFi | Writers, After Dark

[Ben Siegfried]

Stoked to hear from Nick this afternoon, he's working on an update to the amplified widget.

If anyone wants to contribute any patches go here: https://github.com/NicktheGeek/genesis-featured-widget-amplified

[anyname]

The WordPress included jQuery version has moved on somewhat in the last few release cycles especially since 3.5. Along with this is a number of deprecated features of jQuery which may cause issues with existing plugins. In this case the 'live' function is deprecated in favour of event delegation using 'on'

('select.widget-control-save').live('change', function(){

will become

('select').on('change', '.widget-control-save', function() {

Try that.

[Author]

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