K2 + WordPress 2.5 = Broken? I Can Fix That

TRICK: If you are using WordPress 2.5 with K2, please be advised that it will not work. Nope, not at all. You will get a error that may or may not look like this:

Fatal error: Call to undefined function wp_register_sidebar_widget() in /***/*****/***/***/********/***/*************/wp-admin/includes/dashboard.php on line 31

Well, I’ve found the solution so that K2 and WordPress 2.5 can live together… for now.

Go to your K2 installation and find apps/includes/widgets-removal.php. Open that up in Notepad or a code editor, and paste this in instead:

<?php
if(get_option('k2sidebarmanager') != 1) {
	remove_action('plugins_loaded', 'wp_maybe_load_widgets', 0);
	if( is_admin() ){ // If someone is trying to access the admin page
		global $pagenow;
		if( $pagenow == 'index.php' ) wp_maybe_load_widgets();
	}
}
?>

Magically, it will work.

Here’s why: WordPress 2.5 has a slick new dashboard that takes use of widgets to work. K2 blocks widgets when you use Sidebar Modules (which is awesome), so WordPress 2.5 can’t get to widgets.

What this does is make it so that Widgets is disabled for everywhere so that Sidebar Modules will work, EXCEPT for the dashboard. This pretty much solves it.

Nice and simple.

Note: If you want widgets with K2, don’t use the code above and comment out (add // to the beginning) the line that begins with remove_action(…).

Update: Apparently there’s been a lot of public interest in this, so I’m putting up a challenge for somebody to make a WordPress plugin to do this so that other themes using Sidebar Modules will be able to use the fix. Anybody up to the challenge? If you are, 1) make it into a plugin, 2) leave me a comment so I know, and we’ll 3) put it up on chaotic tech! With your name, of course.