Weston Ruter

Payton Swick

Important note: This project was first started before the Gutenberg feature plugin was started. As such, the JS Widgets plugin should now be considered a prototype which may inform the way that widget blocks get implemented in Gutenberg. This plugin will no longer be actively developed.
Also could be known as Widget Customizer 2.0, Widgets 3.0, or Widgets Next Generation.
Warning: The APIs provided by this plugin are still in flux. If creating new widgets that extend the <code>WP_JS_Widget</code> class, please look at the changelog and ensure compatibility with your extended widgets before deploying.
This plugin implements:
<ul>
<li><a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/33507" rel="nofollow ugc">WP-CORE#33507</a>: Allow widget controls to be JS-driven.</li>
<li><a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/35574" rel="nofollow ugc">WP-CORE#35574</a>: Add REST API JSON schema information to WP_Widget.</li>
<li><a href="https://github.com/WP-API/WP-API/issues/19" rel="nofollow ugc">WP-API#19</a>: Add widget endpoints to the WP REST API.</li>
</ul>
Features:
<ul>
<li>Integrates with <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/shortcode-ui/" rel="ugc">Shortcake (Shortcode UI)</a> to allow all JS widgets to be made available as Post Elements in the editor.</li>
<li>Widget instance settings in the Customizer are exported from PHP as regular JSON without any PHP-serialized base64-encoded <code>encoded_serialized_instance</code> anywhere to be seen.</li>
<li>Previewing widget changes in the customizer is faster since the <code>update-widget</code> Ajax request can be eliminated since the JS control can directly manipulate the widget instance data.</li>
<li>Widgets control forms use JS content templates instead of PHP to render the markup for each control, reducing the weight of the customizer load, especially when there are a lot of widgets in use.</li>
<li>Widgets that extend <code>WP_JS_Widget</code> will editable from both the customizer and the widgets admin page using the same <code>Form</code> JS interface. This <code>Form</code> is also able to be embedded in other contexts, like on the frontend and as a Shortcake (Shortcode UI) form. See <a href="https://github.com/xwp/wp-js-widgets/issues/11" rel="nofollow ugc">#11</a>.</li>
<li>Widgets employ the JSON Schema from the REST API to define an instance with validation and sanitization of the instance properties, beyond also providing <code>validate</code> and <code>sanitize</code> methods that work on the instance array as a whole.</li>
<li>A widget instance can be blocked from being saved by returning a <code>WP_Error</code> from its <code>validate</code> or <code>sanitize</code> method. For example, the RSS widget will show an error message if the feed URL provided is invalid and the widget will block from saving until the URL is corrected.</li>
<li>Widgets are exposed under the <code>js-widgets/v1</code> namespace, for example to list all Recent Posts widgets via the <code>/js-widgets/v1/widgets/recent-posts</code> or to get the Text widget with the “ID” (number) of 6, <code>/js-widgets/v1/widgets/text/6</code>.</li>
<li>Customizer settings for widget instances (<code>widget_{id_base}[{number}]</code>) are directly mutated via JavaScript instead of needing to do an <code>update-widget</code> Admin Ajax roundtrip; this greatly speeds up previewing.</li>
<li>Widget control forms can be extended to employ any JS framework for managing the UI, allowing Backbone, React, or any other frontend technology to be used.</li>
<li>Compatible with widgets stored in a custom post type instead of options, via the Widget Posts module in the <a href="https://github.com/xwp/wp-customize-widgets-plus" rel="nofollow ugc">Customize Widgets Plus</a> plugin.</li>
<li>Compatible with <a href="https://github.com/xwp/wp-customize-snapshots" rel="nofollow ugc">Customize Snapshots</a>, allowing changes made in the Customizer to be applied to requests for widgets via the REST API.</li>
<li>Includes adaptations of all core widgets using the new <code>WP_JS_Widget</code> API.</li>
<li>The adapted core widgets include additional raw data in their REST API item responses so that JS can render them client-side.</li>
<li>The Notifications API is utilized to display warnings when a user attempts to provide markup in a core widget title or illegal HTML in a Text widget’s content.</li>
<li>The Pages widget in Core is enhanced to make use of <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/customize-object-selector/" rel="ugc">Customize Object Selector</a> if available to display a Select2 UI for selecting pages to exclude instead of providing page IDs.</li>
<li>An bonus bundled plugin provides a “Post Collection” widget which, if the <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/customize-object-selector/" rel="ugc">Customize Object Selector</a> plugin is installed, will provide a UI for curating an arbitrary list of posts to display.</li>
</ul>
This plugin doesn’t yet implement any widgets that use JS templating for frontend rendering of the widgets. For that, please see the <a href="https://github.com/xwp/wp-next-recent-posts-widget" rel="nofollow ugc">Next Recent Posts Widget</a> plugin.
Limitations/Caveats:
<ul>
<li>Only widgets that extend <code>WP_JS_Widget</code> will be exposed via the REST API. The plugin includes a <code>WP_JS_Widget</code> adapter class which demonstrates how to adapt existing <code>WP_Widget</code> classes for the new widget functionality.</li>
</ul>

JS Widgets

A prototype of next generation of widgets in core, embracing JS for UI and powering the Widgets REST API.

Jeff Starr

This plugin does one thing: disables the WP REST API for visitors who are not logged into WordPress. No configuration required.
This plugin works with only 22 short lines of code (less than 2KB). So it is super lightweight, fast, and effective.
Note: This plugin completely disables the WordPress REST API. So it is not recommended if you need the WP REST API for any functionality.
<h3>Features</h3>
<ul>
<li>Disable REST/JSON for visitors (not logged in)</li>
<li>Disables REST header in HTTP response for all users</li>
<li>Disables REST links in HTML head for all users</li>
<li>100% plug-and-play, set-it-and-forget solution</li>
</ul>
The fast, simple way to prevent abuse of your site’s REST/JSON API
How does it work? That depends on which version of WordPress you are using..
WordPress v4.7 and beyond
For WordPress 4.7 and better, this plugin completely disables the WP REST API unless the user is logged into WordPress.
<ul>
<li>For logged-in users, WP REST API works normally</li>
<li>For logged-out users, WP REST API is disabled</li>
</ul>
What happens if logged-out visitor makes a JSON/REST request? They will get only a simple message:
“rest_login_required: REST API restricted to authenticated users.”
This message may customized via the filter hook, <code>disable_wp_rest_api_error</code>. Check out <a href="https://wordpress.org/support/topic/not-entirely-for-non-techies/#post-12014965" rel="ugc">this post</a> for an example of how to do it.
Older versions of WordPress
For WordPress versions less than 4.7, this plugin simply disables all REST API functionality for all users.
More information available below in the FAQs section.
<h3>Privacy</h3>
This plugin does not collect or store any user data. It does not set any cookies, and it does not connect to any third-party locations. Thus, this plugin does not affect user privacy in any way. If anything it improves user privacy, as it protects potentially sensitive information from being displayed/accessed via REST API.
Disable WP REST API is developed and maintained by <a href="https://x.com/perishable" rel="nofollow ugc">Jeff Starr</a>, 15-year <a href="https://plugin-planet.com/" rel="nofollow ugc">WordPress developer</a> and <a href="https://books.perishablepress.com/" rel="nofollow ugc">book author</a>.
<h3>Support development of this plugin</h3>
I develop and maintain this free plugin with love for the WordPress community. To show support, you can <a href="https://monzillamedia.com/donate.html" rel="nofollow ugc">make a donation</a> or purchase one of my books:
<ul>
<li><a href="https://wp-tao.com/" rel="nofollow ugc">The Tao of WordPress</a></li>
<li><a href="https://digwp.com/" rel="nofollow ugc">Digging into WordPress</a></li>
<li><a href="https://htaccessbook.com/" rel="nofollow ugc">.htaccess made easy</a></li>
<li><a href="https://wp-tao.com/wordpress-themes-book/" rel="nofollow ugc">WordPress Themes In Depth</a></li>
<li><a href="https://books.perishablepress.com/downloads/wizards-collection-sql-recipes-wordpress/" rel="nofollow ugc">Wizard’s SQL Recipes for WordPress</a></li>
</ul>
And/or purchase one of my premium WordPress plugins:
<ul>
<li><a href="https://plugin-planet.com/bbq-pro/" rel="nofollow ugc">BBQ Pro</a> – Blazing fast WordPress firewall</li>
<li><a href="https://plugin-planet.com/blackhole-pro/" rel="nofollow ugc">Blackhole Pro</a> – Automatically block bad bots</li>
<li><a href="https://plugin-planet.com/banhammer-pro/" rel="nofollow ugc">Banhammer Pro</a> – Monitor traffic and ban the bad guys</li>
<li><a href="https://plugin-planet.com/ga-google-analytics-pro/" rel="nofollow ugc">GA Google Analytics Pro</a> – Connect WordPress to Google Analytics</li>
<li><a href="https://plugin-planet.com/head-meta-pro/" rel="nofollow ugc">Head Meta Pro</a> – Ultimate Meta Tags for WordPress</li>
<li><a href="https://plugin-planet.com/simple-ajax-chat-pro/" rel="nofollow ugc">Simple Ajax Chat Pro</a> – Unlimited chat rooms</li>
<li><a href="https://plugin-planet.com/usp-pro/" rel="nofollow ugc">USP Pro</a> – Unlimited front-end forms</li>
</ul>
Links, tweets and likes also appreciated. Thank you! 🙂

Disable WP REST API

while the plugin si deadsimple and very low resource impact, keep in mind that there are plugins that need the rest to work with no auth (ex. contact form 7).

dead simple and efficient, but be aware

Disables the WP REST API for visitors not logged into WordPress.

JS Widgets vs Disable WP REST API