Creating a custom booking widget for WordPress without plugins

Introduction

Creating a custom booking widget on WordPress without using plugins involves a bit of coding but can give you greater control and customization over the functionality and design of your widget. Below is a step-by-step guide to help you build a simple booking form widget directly into your WordPress theme starting from planning, creating a child theme, to styling and testing the widget. Read more to dive deep into the process of creating a booking widget.

Step 1: Planning Your Widget

Before coding, decide what features your booking widget needs. For a basic booking form, you might need:

• Date and time selection
• Name and contact information fields
• A submit button

Step 2: Creating a Child Theme

It's a good practice to create a child theme to avoid losing your changes when updating the parent theme. If you already have a child theme, skip to Step 3.

1. Create a child theme folder: Go to /wp-content/themes/ and create a new folder named yourtheme-child.
2. Create a style.css file inside your child theme folder:

         3.Create a functions.php file:

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Step 3: Adding the Widget Code

1. Create the widget HTML: Edit the functions.php file in your child theme to register a sidebar widget area if it doesn't exist and add the widget code.

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Step 4: Handling Form Submission with JavaScript

1. Add JavaScript to handle the form submission: You can use AJAX to submit form data without reloading the page.Add this script to your functions.php or a separate JS file and enqueue it:

           2. Create custom.js in your child theme under /js/custom.js:

Step 5: Styling Your Widget

You can add CSS directly into your child theme’s style.css to style the form:

Step 6: Testing Your Widget

After integrating the widget into your site, thoroughly test it to ensure it works as expected. Check form submissions, validations, and any interactions with other parts of your website.

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Creating a custom booking widget in WordPress without plugins allows you to tailor the feature to your specific requirements and integrate more closely with your theme's design. This approach requires more upfront work but can be more rewarding for those comfortable with coding and WordPress development.

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