Cybokron Advanced Widget Visibility

Contributors: cybokron Tags: widget, visibility, descendants, grandchildren, pages Requires at least: 5.2 Tested up to: 6.9 Stable tag: 1.7.0 Requires PHP: 7.4 License: GPLv2 or later License URI: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.html

Show or hide widgets by page, category, taxonomy, post type, and user context with descendant support.

== Description ==

🎯 The Problem

Jetpack's Widget Visibility only supports "Include children" which covers direct children (1 level deep). It doesn't include grandchildren, great-grandchildren, or deeper nested pages.

Example:

/services/                          ← Parent
/services/web-design/               ← Child (Jetpack ✓)
/services/web-design/pricing/       ← Grandchild (Jetpack ✗)
/services/web-design/pricing/faq/   ← Great-grandchild (Jetpack ✗)

✅ The Solution

This plugin adds an "Include all descendants" option that includes ALL levels of nested pages - grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and beyond.

Features

• 🎛️ Show/Hide widgets based on conditions
• 📄 Page visibility with full descendant support
• 📁 Category visibility with hierarchy support
• 🏷️ Hierarchical custom taxonomy visibility with descendant support
• 📝 Post type conditions
• 🏠 Special pages: Front page, Blog, Archive, Search, 404
• 👥 User role targeting (any selected role)
• 👤 User state: Logged in / Logged out
• 🔗 Multiple conditions with AND/OR logic
• 🚀 Jetpack-free - no dependencies
• 🌍 30 languages included
• 🔒 Secure - follows WordPress coding standards

Installation

From GitHub

1. Download the latest release from Releases
2. Upload to /wp-content/plugins/
3. Activate the plugin in WordPress Admin → Plugins

Using Git

cd /path/to/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/
git clone https://github.com/ercanatay/cybokron-advanced-widget-visibility.git

Manual Installation

1. Download the ZIP file
2. Go to WordPress Admin → Plugins → Add New → Upload Plugin
3. Upload the ZIP file and activate

Usage

Basic Usage

1. Go to Appearance → Widgets
2. Edit any widget
3. Click the "Visibility" button
4. Choose Show or Hide
5. Select condition type (Page, Category, etc.)
6. Select the specific item
7. Check "Include all descendants" for nested pages
8. Click Done and save the widget

Include Children vs Include All Descendants

Option	Covers	Example
Include children	Direct children only (1 level)	/parent/child/ ✓
Include all descendants	All nested levels (unlimited)	/parent/child/grandchild/great/ ✓

Multiple Conditions

• Add multiple rules with the + button
• Check "Match all conditions" for AND logic (all rules must match)
• Leave unchecked for OR logic (any rule can match)

Condition Types

Type	Description
Page	Specific page with optional descendants
Category	Category archive or posts in category
Taxonomy	Hierarchical public custom taxonomy archive/posts with optional descendants
Post Type	Any post type (post, page, custom)
User Role	Match logged-in users by one or more selected roles
Front Page	Site front page
Blog	Blog posts page
Archive	Any archive page
Search	Search results page
404	Not found page
Single Post	Any single post
Logged In	User is logged in
Logged Out	User is not logged in

Screenshots

Visibility Panel

The visibility panel appears below each widget with:

• Show/Hide dropdown
• Condition type selector
• Value selector (pages, categories, etc.)
• "Include children" checkbox
• "Include all descendants" checkbox (the key feature!)
• "Match all conditions" for AND/OR logic

Requirements

• WordPress 5.2 or higher
• PHP 7.4 or higher

Supported Languages

🇹🇷 Turkish, 🇺🇸 English, 🇪🇸 Spanish, 🇩🇪 German, 🇫🇷 French, 🇮🇹 Italian, 🇧🇷 Portuguese (Brazil), 🇵🇹 Portuguese (Portugal), 🇳🇱 Dutch, 🇵🇱 Polish, 🇷🇺 Russian, 🇯🇵 Japanese, 🇨🇳 Chinese (Simplified), 🇹🇼 Chinese (Traditional), 🇰🇷 Korean, 🇸🇦 Arabic, 🇮🇱 Hebrew, 🇸🇪 Swedish, 🇳🇴 Norwegian, 🇩🇰 Danish, 🇫🇮 Finnish, 🇬🇷 Greek, 🇨🇿 Czech, 🇭🇺 Hungarian, 🇷🇴 Romanian, 🇺🇦 Ukrainian, 🇻🇳 Vietnamese, 🇹🇭 Thai, 🇮🇩 Indonesian, 🇮🇳 Hindi, 🇸🇰 Slovak

Frequently Asked Questions

Does this replace Jetpack Widget Visibility?

Yes, this is a standalone alternative. You can use this instead of Jetpack's visibility feature, or alongside it (they work independently).

Will this slow down my site?

No. The visibility checks are very lightweight and only run when widgets are being displayed.

Can I use this with block-based widgets?

This plugin works with classic widgets. For block-based widget areas, the visibility controls appear in the widget settings.

Changelog

1.7.0 (2026-02-18)

• Feature: Added dedicated settings page with dashicons-visibility sidebar icon.
• Feature: Global bypass toggle to temporarily disable all visibility rules for debugging.
• Feature: Configurable maximum rules per widget (1-200, default 50).
• Feature: Option to delete all visibility data when plugin is uninstalled.
• Feature: Colored application icon displayed on settings page header.
• Enhancement: Quick links to Widgets page and GitHub support.
• Changed: Sidebar icon now uses WordPress dashicon instead of base64 PNG.

1.6.1 (2026-02-18)

• Added: Admin menu page with custom sidebar icon for quick access to plugin info.
• Added: Plugin icon in WordPress admin sidebar.
• Enhancement: About page with getting started guide and feature overview.

1.6.0 (2026-02-18)

• Rebranded: Plugin renamed to "Cybokron Advanced Widget Visibility".
• Changed: Plugin URI updated to new GitHub repository.
• Changed: All GitHub links updated to new repository name.
• Changed: Translation template and catalog headers updated.

1.5.1 (2026-02-15)

• Fixed: Text domain aligned to WordPress.org assigned slug widget-visibility-with-descendants.
• Fixed: Renamed main plugin file to match WordPress.org slug.
• Fixed: Removed .distignore from distribution package.
• Changed: Translation file names updated to match new text domain.

1.5.0 (2026-02-15)

• WordPress.org submission release.
• Changed: Renamed plugin slug and main file to cybokron-descendant-visibility-widgets.
• Changed: Text domain aligned to plugin slug.
• Changed: Contributors updated to valid WordPress.org username cybokron.
• Added: readme.txt in WordPress.org standard format.
• Added: .distignore for clean distribution packaging.
• Added: uninstall.php with proper WP_UNINSTALL_PLUGIN guard.
• Added: GitHub Actions deploy workflow for WordPress.org SVN.

1.4.7 (2026-02-13)

• Security: Restricted widget visibility UI rendering to users with edit_theme_options.
• Security: Prevented visibility data loss by restoring previous wvd_visibility settings when unauthorized users trigger widget updates.

1.4.6 (2026-02-11)

• Docs: Reviewed recent merged PRs and synchronized release notes for maintainers.
• Maintenance: Added explicit PR references to latest stabilization and compliance work (PR #25, PR #24).
• Review: Confirmed there are no currently open pull requests pending merge.

1.4.5 (2026-02-10)

• Fix: Added defensive is_array() validation for widget instance payloads in both admin save and frontend display callbacks.
• Stability: Prevents fatal errors when third-party filters or corrupted widget data pass non-array widget instances.

1.4.4 (2026-02-10)

• Performance: Eliminated N+1 admin queries in page/category option generation by using lookup maps for parent-child detection.
• Stability: Prevented duplicate admin panel event handlers by namespacing jQuery bindings and unbinding old handlers before re-render.
• Hardening: Strengthened frontend rule validation with absint() guards and post type existence checks.
• Cleanup: Removed unnecessary rewrite-rule flush hooks and obsolete textdomain-loading stub.

1.4.3 (2026-02-10)

• Accessibility: Converted visibility panel action controls (Remove, Add condition, Delete) from anchor tags to semantic button elements.
• Accessibility: Added aria-label to icon-only remove control to improve screen-reader support.
• Accessibility: Added keyboard-visible focus styles for action controls.

1.4.2 (2026-02-10)

• Compliance: Removed custom GitHub updater integration to satisfy WordPress.org plugin directory rules.
• Compliance: Removed Update URI header and updater hooks that modified plugin update transients.
• Maintenance: Removed updater settings/admin page and related updater classes.

1.4.1 (2026-02-09)

• Security: Ensured widget visibility sanitization is always initialized for REST widget updates, preventing is_admin() context bypasses.
• i18n: Synced all .po catalogs with the latest .pot template and removed obsolete translation keys.
• i18n: Added fallback translations for newly introduced updater strings across language files and completed Turkish translations for updater text.
• i18n: Recompiled all .mo binaries from updated .po sources.

1.4.0 (2026-02-09)

• Feature: Added GitHub updater integration using WordPress native plugin update flow.
• Feature: Added settings page at Settings → Widget Visibility Updates.
• Feature: Added update channel control (stable / beta) with default stable.
• Enhancement: Added plugin row Update Settings quick link in Plugins screen.
• Enhancement: Added package source normalization during upgrade to ensure correct plugin folder replacement.
• Maintenance: Added updater cache cleanup after settings changes and successful plugin upgrades.

1.3.3 (2026-02-08)

• Fix: Removed hidden tracked development artifact at .jules/sentinel.md to avoid hidden-file check warnings.
• Fix: Normalized mixed line endings to LF in README.md and assets/css/admin.css.
• i18n: Renamed translation files in languages/ to widget-visibility-descendants-main-* so file names align with the active text domain.

1.3.2 (2026-02-08)

• Fix: Standardized plugin text domain usage to widget-visibility-descendants-main across plugin headers and admin UI translation calls.
• Fix: Normalized grandchildren-visibility.php to LF line endings to prevent mixed EOL warnings.
• Fix: Removed root .gitignore from distributable plugin files to satisfy hidden-file checks.

1.3.1 (2026-02-08)

• Fix: Improved category rule evaluation robustness for single posts (PR #19).
• Stability: Switched post ID lookup to get_queried_object_id() in widget visibility checks.
• Hardening: Added zero-ID guard and WP_Error/array validation for wp_get_post_categories() results.
• Type Safety: Cast single-post category IDs to integers for reliable strict comparison.

1.3.0 (2026-02-08)

• Feature: Added taxonomy rule type for hierarchical custom taxonomies (archive + singular post term matching).
• Feature: Added descendant and child matching support for custom taxonomy terms.
• Feature: Added user_role rule type with multi-select role matching (any selected role).
• Security: Added strict sanitization/validation for taxonomy slugs, term IDs, post types, and role arrays.
• Performance: Added request-level taxonomy ancestor caching in frontend evaluator.
• i18n: Added new admin UI strings and updated translation template (.pot) for taxonomy/user role controls.

1.1.4 (2026-02-08)

• Security: Added defensive checks to category visibility evaluation to avoid invalid object property access.
• Stability: Validate get_queried_object() returns a WP_Term before reading term properties on category archives.
• Stability: Validate get_category() results and guard against WP_Error before reading parent term data on single posts.
• Hardening: Prevent potential PHP warnings/errors and reduce information leakage risk in edge-case category queries.

1.1.3 (2026-02-07)

• Fix: Category visibility type safety — cast get_ancestors() results to int for reliable strict comparison
• i18n: Complete internationalization of admin JS by replacing hardcoded English labels with wvdData.i18n.* references
• i18n: Add missing rule type translation keys (Front Page, Blog, Archive, Search, 404, Single Post, Logged In, Logged Out, Select a post type, Configured)
• Security: Remove unimplemented taxonomy and author from allowed rule types whitelist
• Updated translation template (.pot) with new strings

1.1.2 (2025-01-27)

• Security: Replaced json_encode with wp_json_encode for better WordPress compatibility
• Security: Added capability check (edit_theme_options) before saving widget settings
• Defense-in-depth protection for widget update callback

1.1.1 (2025-01-27)

• Security: Added XSS sanitization for page/category/post type titles
• Security: Added DoS protection with rule type whitelist
• Security: Limited maximum rules to 50 to prevent resource exhaustion
• Security: Limited value length to 100 characters to prevent database bloat

1.1.0 (2025-01-27)

• Added 30 language translations
• Turkish, Spanish, German, French, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch, Polish, Russian, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Arabic, Hebrew, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Finnish, Greek, Czech, Hungarian, Romanian, Ukrainian, Vietnamese, Thai, Indonesian, Hindi, Slovak

1.0.1 (2025-01-27)

• Fixed descendant detection bug (ancestor ID type conversion issue)
• Improved reliability for deeply nested page hierarchies

1.0.0 (2025-01-27)

• Initial release
• Page visibility with full descendant support
• Category visibility with hierarchy support
• Post type, special pages, and user state conditions
• Multiple conditions with AND/OR logic

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please feel free to submit a Pull Request.

1. Fork the repository
2. Create your feature branch (git checkout -b feature/amazing-feature)
3. Commit your changes (git commit -m 'Add some amazing feature')
4. Push to the branch (git push origin feature/amazing-feature)
5. Open a Pull Request

License

This project is licensed under the GPL v2 or later - see the LICENSE file for details.

Author

Ercan ATAY

• Website: ercanatay.com
• GitHub: @ercanatay

Support

If you encounter any issues or have questions:

• Open an issue on GitHub Issues
• Check existing issues for solutions

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Note: This plugin is a standalone solution and does not require Jetpack. If you have Jetpack installed, both visibility systems will work independently.