After working with WordPress dashboard widgets in a recent project I wanted to present a complete example with arguments and usage of the control callback for saving widget options. Using the code in the Gist below you will be able to configure custom content for this widget with the native WYSIWYG editor. When you hover over the widget’s title bar the “Configure” link will be revealed – you must be an Administrator to configure the widget.
Widget Display
Widget Configuration
There are couple of special things to note. The first is the workaround to enable the autoembed functions for content output (lines 12-16). The dashboard has no post ID and without a post ID that evaluates to true autoembed will fail to do its job. The second thing to note is code to set the widget priority (lines 81-85). However, once a user manually positions a dashboard widget this code is no longer effective.
You may find this code useful for developing a “getting started” widget to help users use custom WordPress admin features you’ve developed.