Custom Widget outputs the input but doesn't save anything inside the textarea

Question

I've been working on my first widget, Everything works perfectly except it doesn't save anything I add to the textarea box. It will output the input on the website however.

From research I think its something to do with the form function and update, but can't quite get my head around which part.

Here is my widget code.

<?php

 /*
Plugin Name: Hexagran Featured Widget
Plugin URI: http://thevisionists.com
Description: Produces a widget for use in the widget panel.
Version: 0.1
Author: Danny & Tom
Author URI: http://thevisionists.com
License:none


 */

 //$args pulls in the arguments from the sidebar.php

    class hexagram_featured_widget extends WP_Widget {

        function __construct() {
            parent::__construct('false', $name = __( 'Hexagram Featured Box'), //tranlation enabled // accessing the perant constructer
            array( 'description' => __('Displays the content you place inside, strips all html'))
            ); // end of the construct
        }

        function form($instance) {
            $title = strip_tags( $instance['title'] );
            $info = esc_textarea( $instance['info'] );

            ?>
            <p><label for="<?php echo $this->get_field_id('title'); ?>"><?php _e('Title:'); ?></label>
        <input class="widefat" id="<?php echo $this->get_field_id('title'); ?>" name="<?php echo $this->get_field_name('title'); ?>" type="text" value="<?php echo esc_attr($title); ?>" /></p>
        <p><label for="<?php echo $this->get_field_id('info'); ?>"><?php _e('Text Goes here:'); ?></label>
        <textarea class="widefat" rows="8" cols="10" id="<?php echo $this->get_field_id('info'); ?>" name="<?php echo $this->get_field_name('info'); ?>"></textarea>
            <?php
        }

        function update( $new_instance, $old_instance) {
            $instance = array();
            $instance[ 'title' ] = strip_tags($new_instance[ 'title' ]);
            $instance[ 'info' ] = strip_tags($new_instance[ 'info' ]);
            return $instance;
        }

        function widget($args, $instance) {
            extract($args);
            $title = apply_filters('widget_title', $instance['title'] );
            $info = $instance[ 'info' ];

            echo $before_widget;
            if ( ! empty( $title ) ) echo $before_title . $title . $after_title;
            if ($info) print $info;
            echo $after_widget;


        }

    } // end of the class holding all the functions


    add_action('widgets_init', function() {
        register_widget('hexagram_featured_widget');
    }
    )
     // adds an action to register the widget
    // class name is always the name of the register widget argument.
?>

Answer 1

Your primary issue isn't with saving the data but displaying in the form if it has been saved. I rewrote the offending function:

  function form($instance) {
    $title = strip_tags( $instance['title'] );
    $info = esc_textarea( $instance['info'] );
    // var_dump($instance); // debug
    ?>
    <p>
      <label for="<?php echo $this->get_field_id('title'); ?>"><?php _e('Title:'); ?></label>
      <input class="widefat" id="<?php echo $this->get_field_id('title'); ?>" name="<?php echo $this->get_field_name('title'); ?>" type="text" value="<?php echo esc_attr($title); ?>" />
    </p>
    <p>
    <label for="<?php echo $this->get_field_id('info'); ?>"><?php _e('Text Goes here:'); ?></label>
      <textarea class="widefat" rows="8" cols="10" id="<?php echo $this->get_field_id('info'); ?>" name="<?php echo $this->get_field_name('info'); ?>"><?php if (!empty($info)) echo $info; ?></textarea>
    <?php
  }

You should make the change suggest by @br3nt, though.

I don't see any other issues except for some minor notices that you would see if you had debugging enabled

Answer 2

try adding:

$instance = $old_instance;

as the first line of your update function, instead of:

$instance = array();

Answer 3

Change your class name which is

class hexagram_featured_widget extends WP_Widget {

to this

class WP_Widget_hexagram_featured_widget extends WP_Widget {

and this line

parent::__construct('false', $name = __( 'Hexagram Featured Box'), //tranlation enabled // accessing the perant constructer

to this

parent::__construct('hexagram_featured_widget', $name = __( 'Hexagram Featured Box'), //tranlation enabled // accessing the perant constructer

and lastly change this line

add_action('widgets_init', function() {
        register_widget('hexagram_featured_widget');
    }

to

add_action('widgets_init', function() {
        register_widget('WP_Widget_hexagram_featured_widget ');
    }