Advanced Custom Fields: Widget Area Field

Easily add and change Widget Areas on any page template using Advanced Custom Fields and the Advanced Custom Fields: Widget Area Field plugin. This plugin will add a field with a drop-down selection of all registered Widget Areas in your WordPress installation. You can select which widget area you would like to display in your template files when using ACF’s get_field and the_field functions.

As of version 1.0, support for ACF v5 is included.

This Plugin Requires Advanced Custom Fields Version 4 or Higher

Advanced Custom Fields can be found in the WordPress Plugin Repository Here.

Compatibility

This add-on will work with:

• Advanced Custom Fields version 4 and up

This add-on can be treated as both a WP plugin and a theme include.

Plugin

1. Install through the WordPress plugin repository
2. Activate the plugin via the Plugins admin page

Plugin (Manual)

1. Copy the ‘acf-widget_area’ folder into your plugins folder
2. Activate the plugin via the Plugins admin page

Include

1. Copy the ‘acf-widget_area’ folder into your theme folder (can use sub folders).

2. Edit your functions.php file and add the code below (Make sure the path is correct to include the acf-widget_area.php file. You should also change my_register_fields function name to something unique.)

   add_action(‘acf/register_fields’, ‘my_register_fields’);

   function my_register_fields() {
   include_once(‘acf-widget_area/acf-widget_area.php’);
   }

How does this work?

For this plugin to work, you need to have the Advanced Custom Fields Plugin installed. Once installed, you will be able to select a Widget Area as one of your custom fields.

How do I add new Widget Areas?

The WordPress Codex has an article on Widgetizing Themes which includes “How to Register a Widget Area”. If you add a new Widget Area (also called sidebar) with this method it will be available in Appearance > Widgets and also able to be selected in your new Widget Area Field.

How do I display my Widget Area Field?

The Advanced Custom Fields website has documentation on displaying custom field values.

0.0.1

• Initial Release.

1.0.0

• Add ACF v5 support
• Fixed an issue where it should have been buffering output
• Add the ability to return the name of widget area instead of just the HTML output
• Adding some escaping, better spacing, commenting
• Better translation support for the few strings included
• Fix bugs preventing from being used in Repeater Fields
• Add checks for ACF existing and other checks