Update: The sale is now over and Contextual Widgets is $17 until the PluginGreat site goes live.
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The Contextual Widgets plugin weekend sale is now live.
And I can hear you saying…
"What is Contextual Widgets? What does it mean? What does it do?"
This new plugin is the third and final of the trio of what I think of as the control plugins for WordPress. All three plugins do things that really should be part of WordPress but aren't, and they move it a step closer to being a CMS. (The Multiple Streams Themes help too with lots of sidebars.)
The first of the three control plugins was "Ads Manager" which allows you to display ads depending on lots of different rules you can set.
The second control plugin was "Widgets In It" which allows you to place any widget into any post or page content, not just in a sidebar.
This final control plugin "Contextual Widgets" allows you to decide which widgets will appear on which parts of your site. It works with ALL standard widgets, not just the ones I've released.
Now I know you might still be wondering a bit at the moment, but I'll try to explain.
You know how a WordPress theme allows you to drag and drop widgets into the sidebars? Well it's usually a case of all or nothing. Once you've dropped them there, all you have is the same widgets in the sidebar on *every* page and post on your site.
There's no way of saying you don't want to see a particular widget on a certain page.
Until now.
With "Contextual Widgets" you can choose exactly in which context each widget will appear.
So you may decide that you only want to place a particular ad in a sidebar on a particular page (or context).
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Example #1…
You write a blog page that discusses the importance of building a mailing list (the why), but you don't put in any details about the steps they need to do it (the how). Over in your sidebar are your affiliate ads for an ebook on list building and an autoresponder service that only shows on that page, ie in that particular context.
Example #2…
A visitor arrives at your site via a search engine and lands on one of your tag or category archive pages. They see an ad that's nowhere else on your site.
Example #3
A visitor to your home page sees links to some of your best articles in the top of the main sidebar. They click on one of the links and end up on the page they're interested in, with a strongly related ad to the article, while your list of articles has been moved firther down the sidebar.
***
Aha! Get it?
There are plenty of contexts built right in:-
o Home – Your site's blog page if it isn't set to your front page.
o Front Page – Your site's front page which can be different to your blog.
o Post – Individual posts, ie not your home/blog page.
o Attachment – For your attachment pages, e.g. movies, audio and images.
o Author – Author archive pages.
o Category – Category archive pages.
o Date – Date archive pages.
o Tag – Tag pages.
o Search – Search results pages.
o Page not found – Your 404 error pages.
Plus every single page you create gets auto-added to the list of contexts. So every page you write about any topic can be set to show its own unique ads. 
I hope by now you can see how powerful this plugin is, and how it gives you an extra level of control over your blog that a standard WordPress installation doesn't.
Right now and until Monday, you can get the Contextual Widgets plugin for just $10. After that it will be set to $17 until I officially launch the PluginGreat.com web site, and then I set the price of this plugin to $27.
If you think this plugin might be even remotely useful (Who am I kidding? It's perfect for any WP installation…), then now is the best time to get it. Especially if you have either of the first two control plugins.
You can get it at the lowest price it will ever be ($10) by clicking the button below:-
Update: The sale is now over and Contextual Widgets is $17 until the PluginGreat site goes live.
-Frank Haywood
Thanks Frank! Your releases are always of high value and high quality. It's nice to have a fellow internet marketer that supports fellow internet marketers. There's so much over-priced, over-hyped, under-performing junk for sale out there but you stand out with your products and pricing. I've been a loyal follower for several years now and will continue to be.
@Derek Taylor:
Well, thank you. That's really flattering. I know I'm far from perfect, but I try my best.
-Frank
Will this plugin allow my posts to appear somewhere other than my front page?
I want my review and product on front page and all other articles to be somewhere else.
@chuck:
No it won't, this plugin controls where your widgets appear, not your pages. The product you need to do what you want is WordPress Affiliate Pages and you can get it from here:-
http://www.wpaffiliatepages.com/
-Frank
Frank, you've done it again. This plugin will really add extra functionality to any wordpress install. Hav'ta have it, and $10 is a true no-brainer! Thanks!
@Maury:
Yep, I think so too. If this plugin were a person, he or she would be unassuming.
Contextual Widgets is one of those useful tools that you're not sure you need until you start using it and then you wonder how you've ever done without it. The ability to do this should be built right into WordPress, but it isn't and also isn't ever likely to be.
I might do a video tomorrow to show it off a bit.
-Frank
Frank,
Is the "Ads Manager" plugin available somewhere? I could use something like this right now. I need to be able to run 3 skyscraper ads at a time in my sidebar and have them rotate among about a dozen ads. Rotation should be based on exposure time.
I looked all through your site and couldn't find "Ads Manager".
Thanks!
@Roy:
I supply the Ads Manager plugin for free with the Multiple Streams Themes I release, and I also supply it bundled with the "Widgets In It" plugin which alows you to actually insert widgets into posts and pages, not just sidebars.
You can get the plugin bundle using this link.
http://www.frankhaywood.com/go/pgamwii/
There's a slug of work to officially open both the Multiple Streams Themes and Plugin Great sites. Maybe I can get that done before September starts.
-Frank
Is there anyway to make the widgets in it plugin compatible with http://www.deanlee.cn/wordpress/fckeditor-for-wordpress-plugin/. It does not show up on the interface.
@John:
No, but you've raised a good point here. My philosophy for WordPress is to stick with the WordPress core. So you might see there are many themes and plugins out there that change the way WordPress works and then locks you into doing it their way rather than the WP way.
For example, the many "framework" themes that have been released that are designed to run child themes or skins inside their framework.
My gut says this is a bad way to do things, as any new version of WP can completely break any framework, and you either end up in the position of having a broken site if you upgrade WP, or not being able to upgrade WP at all until the framework is bought up to date. I don't know which is worse.
So in your example, we could spend a huge amount of time making the plugin work with that other editor, only to find that either:-
a) Only 1% of people use it.
b) It breaks in some WP upgrade and is never fixed.
c) It breaks and is fixed, but we then have to do another slug of work with our plugin for a limited number of users.
Whichever way you look at it, it's just not worth it. The WordPress dev team have said TinyMCE is what they're going to use for a rich editor, and that's that. I agree with you that TinyMCE isn't the best way to do it, and I've even tried other editors such as WYSIWYG Pro, but in the end I found it made more sense to go with the flow rather than against it.
Sorry.
-Frank
Great Frank, you did it again,
But this time you convert any WordPress Blog into a high optimized Robot and money making site, love it.
Mafer
Hmm, think I'll get this plugins as well
Frank are you planning to make/develop any other plugins for WP? Why I ask is, if you are can you maybe set up like a demo blog with all the plugins (past and future) installed on it, so we can see the plugins in action. Seeing the plugins live could help decide if any of our blogs could utilise a certain plugin as some niches may not call for all plugins to be used etc.
Just a wee little thought.
Thanks for another great plugin!
Take care
Valda
G'day Frank,
Thought I had seen this somewhere alas another one I didn't have.
Pretty sure I now have a use for this one and it will solve a problem I was trying to work around.
Oh well top dollar again got me twice in one week.
That will teach me even if I don't think I need it I might in the future.
Regards
Rob Paris Cruisin