WP 4.2 has frontend top adminbar menu bug!

I noticed that as well. Wasn’t sure if it was a bug or an intended change. Personally like changing Widgets in the old way outside of the Customize UI. It’s actually more efficient.

+1 – Hopefully there’s a plugin for that soon. I waste like 30 Minutes aa day because of that useless change… Why did anyone want to get redirected to the customizer when one clicks on Widgets??? There are absolutely NONE options for widgets whatsoever that you can access via the Customizer. If anyone wants to get there, he can click the Customize link…

This annoyed me enough that I spent the evening searching for a solution. If you don’t mind adding some code to your functions.php, I found a neat little solution on this site.

I used the following customization to a) remove the existing widgets link, b) add back a link to the widgets page, and c) as a bonus, also add a link to plugins, which I had always felt was missing for me on the toolbar! Hope this helps someone else too. 🙂

//*Custom Admin Toolbar Links
// remove Widget Customizer link from menu
add_action( 'admin_bar_menu', 'remove_customize',999 );

function remove_customize ($wp_admin_bar) {
 		    $wp_admin_bar->remove_node( 'customize-widgets' );  

}

add_action( 'admin_bar_menu', 'add_link_to_admin_bar',999 );

// add links to child node
function add_link_to_admin_bar($wp_admin_bar) {
		  // add a widget child node
          $wp_admin_bar->add_node( array(
                'parent' => 'site-name',
                'id'     => 'widgets',
                'title'  => 'Widgets',
                'href'   => esc_url( admin_url( 'widgets.php' ) ),
                'meta'   => false
       		));
		  // add plugin node
          $wp_admin_bar->add_node( array(
                'parent' => 'site-name',
                'id'     => 'plugins',
                'title'  => 'Plugins',
                'href'   => esc_url( admin_url( 'upload.php' ) ),
                'meta'   => false
       		));
}