modifying title (in dashboard) for different widget instances

Question

When I insert multiple instances of widget in a particular sidebar, they all appear by default collapsed and with the same title. E.g.:

In this case, the user can upload a different pic to each widget, and reorder them as they want. It's not very user friendly having to click to open each one to see if its the one that they want to remove/edit/change of place.

With the form() method of the widget we can change whatever is shown once opened, but the "<div class="widget-title">" and its corresponding "<h4>" are out of bounds.

Is there any filter or action that allows to edit what happens there and insert some instance specific information? E.g.: "Graphic Ad: Foobar".

Answer 1

I believe if you add 'title' field to the form() (and update()) method this will be displayed in the admin interface. Traditionally this would also be used in the widget() method, but is not required.

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

    function form( $instance ) {
        $instance = wp_parse_args( (array) $instance, array( 'title' => '' ) );
        $title = strip_tags($instance['title']);
        ?><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><?php
    }