Sidebar Module and WordPress 2.3

WordPress 2.3 has been released over a week already and I’m still doubtful if I should upgrade now or wait until the bugs and problems subside. Though I’m tempted to update the other sites I’m managing to 2.3, other than my blog, and see what happens. hehe *evil grin*

Anyway… feeling adventurous, (me?? adventurous!? O.o!? ), I took an old wordpress 2.2.3 test site here in the office and upgraded it to wordpress 2.3 using the Subtle theme I used in my live blog. So far so good… copy and paste folders and files via winSCP, making sure not to overwrite the wp-config.php. Now to install each plugin I used… 30 mins and so far no problems…

Let’s see if SBM works… *ACCKKK! I can’t add sidebar widgets!*

Something was really broken in the SBM plugin. Checking firebug, I found out that a function was redeclared in another file. Further more, there are files in WP 2.2.3 that are no longer in WP 2.3!!! O__o?!

This totally broke the SBM plugin. SMB was including admin-db.php, which was one of the files no longer in WP 2.3 admin folder. And since I did a copy-paste of WP 2.3 over the old WP 2.2.3, the admin-db.php file was not overwritten or deleted. This was what made the redeclaration function sprout. Below is a list of php files no longer in the admin folder for WP 2.3.

• admin-db.php
• upgrade-schema.php
• upload-functions.php

… there were other files also but they were css and js files though.. nothing threatening.

One thing for sure… once I do upgrade to WP 2.3, a total wipe for wp-admin and the wp-includes folder is in order. This will make sure I don’t redeclare functions that were transfered to another file.

Oh, to make SBM plugin word again, a small hack is in order. Open SBM.php file in any text editor and go to the last few lines of the page. Locate :

require_once(ABSPATH . ‘wp-admin/admin-db.php’);

and comment that out… SBM should work now. =)

Update: Seems like Scriptaculous’ latest version broke some parts of SBM in WP 2.3. ‘Some’ in a sense that sidebar 2 widgets are not shown in the SBM panel of Subtle theme, but the widgets will appear in the main index page or whatever page you place them. One suggestion I can give is to take the old Scriptaculous js, rename the new Scriptaculous file and use the old one during your modification then re-replace the old with the new when your done. It’s tedious but its temporary and hope that the original author can change the codes or someone can update the SBM code. (sigh) This is just a temporary fix for you to be able to move the widgets around.