WordBar

Wordbar creates a simple wordcounter / progress bar as a Widget on your WordPress blog.

The widget counts all the words in all the published posts in your Posts table. It then outputs either a progress bar, or a box with the total word count across your blog.

Useful for contests like NaNoWriMo, or just for showing off how much you’ve written and published.

1. Unzip and upload the wordbar folder to your /wp-content/plugins/ directory
2. Activate the plugin through the ‘Plugins’ menu in WordPress
3. Edit your Widgets, drag in a new Wordbar Widget
4. (Optional) Configure the widget with a custom title and wordcount target

Is this cross-browser compatible?

The result has been tested in Chrome, IE and Firefox (Windows). It uses very primitive CSS and HTML, though (not even any Javascript) so most browsers shouldn’t have trouble rendering it.

How often does it update?

Every time the widget is rendered it gets the total from the WordPress database from scratch.

What if I only want to list posts with a particular category, or tag?

The code for the plugin itself can be edited. There is only one $wpdb call in the wordbar_render function, and it can be edited to bring back posts in any combination.

1. 

   The widget configuration boxes in the admin panel.

2. 

   The widget in action, giving a total of all words on the blog.

3. 

   The widget in action, giving the total as a percentage of a target.

1.0

• First version