by Jonathan Daggerhart 5 (11 reviews)

Widget Wrangler

Name: Widget Wrangler
Rating: 5.0 (11 reviews)
Author: Jonathan Daggerhart

A plugin for managing the display of widgets on a page by page basis. Using widgets as a post type.

Widget Wrangler ranks #12,364 among WordPress.org plugins with 200+ active installations, is #1,518 of 8,538 in the Customization category, a 5/5 rating from 11 reviews, and was last updated Aug 18, 2020. Data from WordPress.org, refreshed twice daily — see methodology.

Tested up to WP 5.5 (Current: 7.1)

vtrunk Current Version vtrunk

Updated 6 years ago Last Update on 18 Aug, 2020

Refreshed 10 hours ago Last Refreshed on

#1,518 of 8,538 in Customization Top 25% by installs No update in over a year

View on WordPress.org

Rank

#12,364

— No change

Active Installs

200+

-17.7%

KW Avg Position

N/A

— No change

Downloads

46.3K

+2 today

Support Resolved

— No change

Rating

100%

Review 5 out of 5

5 (11 reviews)

Next Milestone 300

Total Progress 42%

200+ 300+

1,232

Ranks to Climb

Growth Needed

8,000,000

Active Installs

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Rank Changes

Current #12,364

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Active Installs Growth

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Active Installs 0,000,000+

Growth +0.0%

Peak 0,000,000

Downloads Growth

Downloads

Growth

Peak

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Reviews & Ratings

5.0

11 reviews

Overall 100%

11 (100%)

0 (0%)

Security History

Source: WPVulnerability

1 known vulnerability on record · 1 in the last 24 months · checked 1 month ago

Mar 18, 2026 UNPATCHED

Widget Wrangler [widget-wrangler] <= 2.3.9 (unfixed + closed)

CVE-2026-25447 · No fix released

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Plugin Details

Version: trunk
Last Updated: Aug 18, 2020
Requires WP: 0+
Tested Up To: 5.5
PHP Version: 5.3 or higher
Author: Jonathan Daggerhart

Support & Rating

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ 5
Reviews: 11
Support Threads: 0
Resolved: 0%

Keywords

admin administration sidebar widget widgets

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TL;DR

AI summary of the plugin's readme

Widget Wrangler is for WordPress site administrators who need fine-grained control over widget placement. It solves the problem of managing which widgets display on which pages by treating widgets as a custom post type with per-page and global visibility controls.

Widgets as a post type
PHP in widgets
Custom Widget templates
Per-page widget visibility control
Global Display Logic
Alter Sidebar HTML
Shortcodes for Widgets
Hide Widget Titles

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about Widget Wrangler

A Corral is an arbitrary group of widgets. WordPress calls them "sidebars", but they are not ultimately limited by that terminology. You could have multiple Corrals appear within a single Sidebar if needed.

With the new "Theme compatibility" setting, it is possible for the widget's html to come from 2 places. If Theme Compatibility is not enabled, then all the html for widgets come from Widget Wrangler's widget template (widget.php). With Theme Compatibility enabled, the outer html for the widget comes from the registered sidebar's properties ($before_widget, $before_title, etc), while the inner content html comes from the widget template. Be aware that on new Widget Wrangler installs, "Theme Compatibility" is enabled by default.

Widget Wrangler comes with built in shortcode support for each widget. To show a single widget in a content area, use the shortcode pattern of [ww_widget id={post_id}]. ie. [ww_widget id=240] where 240 is the post_id of the widget.

A widget's post ID is displayed in the 'Options' panel when editing that widget.

The easiest way is to go to the standard Widget area under the Appearance admin menu item and drag the "Widget Wrangler - Corral" widget into the sidebar area where you want it, then select which Widget Wrangler corral should be shown from the widget options. The other way requires you to edit your template files and find any instance of the dynamic_sidebar() function. Replace these functions with ww_dynamic_sidebar('corral_slug').

In the widget-wrangler directory there is a file named 'templates/widget.php'. Copy this file to your theme's root directory and rename it 'widget.php'. You can edit the HTML in the file to have widgets defaultly appear as you want. To template specific widgets, save a copy of templates/widget.php as widget-[widget ID].php in your theme directory. (eg. widget-121.php, where 121 is the widget's ID)

Mostly. Widgets designed for WordPress 3+ are able to be used with the 'Copy WP Widget' option in the Widget Wrangler menu. Widgets programmed for older versions of WordPress may not work.

When you Copy a WordPress widget, it creates a new widget post in the Widget Wrangler system with the settings for the original WordPress widget pre-filled. A copied widget will contain the original widget form for the WP widget.