WordPress loads a number of dashboard widgets by default when an admin logs into the site. Some of these are incredibly useful, like the comments widget and incoming links. But others aren’t really necessary for the standard user, such as the WordPress News and Development Blog feeds. For the majority of my clients it just clutters up the dashboard and slows down the page load.

On WordPress Weekly a few weeks back, Jacob Goldman mentioned that he removes all these unnecessary widgets on his client’s sites and replaces them with the contact information for his company in case people need support. I thought this was a brilliant idea, but didn’t realize how easy it was until I read an article on dashboard hacks by Cats Who Code.

So, this is my first ever attempt at a plug-in. I relied heavily on the WordPress Codex post about dashboard widgets and altered an rss feed plug-in that was hiding in the repository. I’m not sure I got everything right, especially on the feed end, but I thought I’d share the code for anyone who’s interested.

This plug-in will add a widget that displays the contact information for my company and an rss feed from my blog. It’s well commented and should be fairly straight forward to alter for your own purposes. You can download the plug-in here.

<?php
/*
Plugin Name: Dashboard Support Widgets
Plugin URI: http://www.wordpresstheming.com
Description: Add support and rss widgets to dashboard
Version: 1.0
Author: Devin Price
Author URI: http://www.wordpresstheming.com
*/
// Remove Some of the Standard Widgets
function remove_dashboard_widgets() {
	// Globalize the metaboxes array, this holds all the widgets for wp-admin
 	global $wp_meta_boxes;
	// Remove the following dashboard widgets
	unset($wp_meta_boxes['dashboard']['normal']['core']['dashboard_right_now']);
	unset($wp_meta_boxes['dashboard']['normal']['core']['dashboard_plugins']);
	unset($wp_meta_boxes['dashboard']['side']['core']['dashboard_primary']);
	unset($wp_meta_boxes['dashboard']['side']['core']['dashboard_secondary']);
}
// Hook into the 'wp_dashboard_setup' action to register our function
add_action('wp_dashboard_setup', 'remove_dashboard_widgets' );
// Register New Dashboard Widgets
function wpt_register_dashboard_widget() {
	wp_add_dashboard_widget('wpt_rss_dashboard_widget', 'WordPress Theming Feed', 'wpt_rss_dashboard_widget');
	wp_add_dashboard_widget('support_dashboard_widget', 'WordPress Theming Support', 'support_dashboard_widget');
}
// Hook into the 'wp_dashboard_setup' action to register our other functions
add_action('wp_dashboard_setup', 'wpt_register_dashboard_widget');
//Support Dashboard Widget
function support_dashboard_widget() {
	// Displays contact and support info in the widget box
	echo "<p>Please contact <a href=\"mailto:devin@wordpresstheming.com\">devin@wordpresstheming.com</a> if you have questions or need updates for your website.  The <a href=\"http://wordpress.org/codex/\">WordPress Codex</a> and <a href=\"http://wordpress.org/support/\">Support Forums</a> are also great places to find answers to your questions.</p>";
}
// Print Dashboard Widget
function wpt_rss_dashboard_widget($sidebar_args) {
	global $wpdb;
	include_once(ABSPATH . WPINC . '/rss.php');
	$rss_feed = "http://feeds.feedburner.com/wordpress-theming";
	echo "<div id='identity'></div>";
	echo "<ul>";
	$rss = fetch_rss($rss_feed);
	$rss->items = array_slice($rss->items, 0, 6);
	$channel = $rss->channel;
	foreach ($rss->items as $item ) {
		$parsed_url = parse_url(wp_filter_kses($item['link']));
		echo "<li><b><a href=" . wp_filter_kses($item['link']) . ">" . wptexturize(wp_specialchars($item['title'])) . "</a></b></li>";
	}
	echo "</ul>";
}
?>