I am building a custom widget for my custom taxonomy and custom post type. basically it is a widget which displays recent posts from custom post type(game). I want to give the user an option to choose a term from which he want to display the custom posts. I have placed a drop-down list with all the custom terms available for my custom post type. But the problem is when user selects a term from the list, the drop-down instance ` $instance( cat_drop )` does not returne any value. what i will do is i will get this value and make a custom query to return all the posts from the selected term. following is my code. function get_all_terms(){ $args = array( 'taxonomy' => 'gamecategory', 'hide_empty' => 0, 'orderby' => 'name', 'order' => 'ASC', 'show_count' => 0, 'use_desc_for_title' => 0, 'title_li' => 0, 'style' => '', 'echo' => false, ); $categories = wp_list_categories($args); if ( $categories ) { // printf( '<div class="col">%s</div>', $categories ); } return $categories; } /** * Adds Latest Games widget. */ class latest_games_widget extends WP_Widget { /** * Register widget with WordPress. */ function __construct() { parent::__construct( 'latest_games_widget', // Base ID esc_html__( 'Latest Games', 'prisma' ), // Name array( 'description' => esc_html__( 'Most Recent Games', 'text_domain' ), ) // Args ); } /** * Front-end display of widget. */ public function widget( $args, $instance ) { echo $args['before_widget']; if ( ! empty( $instance['title'] ) ) { echo $args['before_title'] . apply_filters( 'widget_title', $instance['title'] ) . $args['after_title']; } //Widget Content $selected_cat = $instance['cat_drop']; $args = array('post_type' => 'game', 'gamecategory' =>$selected_cat); $loop = new WP_Query($args); if($loop->have_posts( )): while($loop->have_posts()): $loop->the_post();?> <div class="col-md-3 game-card-outer"> <div class="game-card"> <?php if (has_post_thumbnail()): ?> <a href="<?php the_permalink();?>"><?php the_post_thumbnail('small', array('class' => 'aligncenter')); ?></a> <?php endif;?> <a class="latest_games_widget_post_title" href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>"><?php the_title(); ?></a> </div> </div> <?php endwhile; endif; //After Widget part echo $args['after_widget']; } /** * Back-end widget form. * * @see WP_Widget::form() * * @param array $instance Previously saved values from database. */ public function form( $instance ) { $title = ! empty( $instance['title'] ) ? $instance['title'] : esc_html__( '', 'prisma' ); $cat_title = ! empty( $instance['cat_title'] ) ? $instance['cat_title'] : esc_html__( '', 'prisma' ); ?> <select name="" id="<?php echo ( $this->get_field_id( 'cat_drop' ) ); ?>"> <?php $terms = get_terms(['taxonomy' => 'gamecategory','hide_empty' => false,]);foreach($terms as $item){?> <option value="<?php echo $item->name;?>"><?php echo $item->name; ?></option> <?php }?> </select> <p> <label for="<?php echo esc_attr( $this->get_field_id( 'cat_title' ) ); ?>"><?php esc_attr_e( 'Game category to Display:', 'prisma' ); ?></label> <input class="widefat" id="<?php echo esc_attr( $this->get_field_id( 'cat_title' ) ); ?>" name="<?php echo esc_attr( $this->get_field_name( 'cat_title' ) ); ?>" type="text" value="<?php echo esc_attr( $title ); ?>"> </p> <p> <label for="<?php echo esc_attr( $this->get_field_id( 'title' ) ); ?>"><?php esc_attr_e( 'Widget Title:', 'prisma' ); ?></label> <input class="widefat" id="<?php echo esc_attr( $this->get_field_id( 'title' ) ); ?>" name="<?php echo esc_attr( $this->get_field_name( 'title' ) ); ?>" type="text" value="<?php echo esc_attr( $title ); ?>"> </p> <?php } /** * Sanitize widget form values as they are saved. * * @see WP_Widget::update() * * @param array $new_instance Values just sent to be saved. * @param array $old_instance Previously saved values from database. * * @return array Updated safe values to be saved. */ public function update( $new_instance, $old_instance ) { $instance = array(); $instance['title'] = ( ! empty( $new_instance['title'] ) ) ? sanitize_text_field( $new_instance['title'] ) : ''; $instance['cat_title'] = ( ! empty( $new_instance['cat_title'] ) ) ? sanitize_text_field( $new_instance['cat_title'] ) : ''; $instance[ 'cat_drop' ] = ( !empty( $new_instance[ 'cat_drop' ] ) ? strip_tags( $new_instance[ 'cat_drop' ] ) : esc_html__('','prisma') ); return $instance; } } // class Foo_Widget // register Foo_Widget widget function register_foo_widget() { register_widget( 'latest_games_widget' ); } add_action( 'widgets_init', 'register_foo_widget' );