I’m sure a lot of people will be very happy about that!

I would like to point out, however, that the WP Tab Widget plugin is superior to the deprecated combo widget, in that one can choose in the plugin settings which order to display the tabs. Previously, we had to edit Enfold’s deprecated combo widget code to accomplish this. WP Tab Widget also uses ajax, and has other more robust features accessible via settings.

Also, for our purposes, we actually prefer the method WP Tab Widget uses to order popular posts. Where the Enfold deprecated combo widget orders popular posts based on comment count, WP Tab Widget does it based on view count. This better suits our needs.

So all that said, perhaps the powers that be can consider these features when the combo widget is resurrected!

Here was our solution for the deprecated combo widget. We customized the css so that the widget would closely resemble Enfold’s deprecated widget.

1. Install and activate the “WP Tab Widget” plugin from the WordPress repository.
2. Go to Wp Admin > Appearance > Widgets and drag the “WP Tab Widget” where you want it to appear on your site.
3. Add the CSS below to your Quick CSS or style.css file. (If you use Quick CSS for testing, you should move the new css to your style.css to make it permanent.)
4. Customize the plugin settings to your taste (we did not program the css to include the tags tab, only recent, popular, and comments)

/* WP Tab Widget Avia Combo Widget Replacement */
.wpt_widget_content { border: none !important; }

.wpt_widget_content .inside { 
    border-top: 1px solid #e1e1e1 !important; 
    margin-top: -1px !important;
    padding-top: 0px !important;
}

.wpt_widget_content .tab-content li {
   padding-left: 0px !important;
   padding-right: 0px !important;
   padding-bottom: 10px !important;
}

.wpt_thumbnail, .wpt_avatar {
    margin-right: 9px !important;
    padding: 3px !important;
    float: left !important;
    margin-top: 4px !important;
    margin-bottom: 4px !important;
    border-style: solid !important;
    border-width: 1px !important;
    height: 36px !important;
    width: 36px !important;
    display: block !important;
}

.wpt_widget_content .entry-title a {
    color: #222222 !important;
    overflow: hidden !important;
    font-size: 13px !important;
    margin-top: 0px !important;
    font-weight: bold !important;
    margin-top: 2px !important;
    display: block !important;
    line-height: 20px !important;
}

.wpt_comment_content p {
    color: #222222 !important;
    overflow: hidden !important;
    font-size: 12px !important;
    margin-top: 0px !important;
    font-weight: bold !important;
    margin-top: 2px !important;
    display: block !important;
    line-height: 20px !important;
}

.wpt_widget_content .wpt-postmeta {
    font-size: 11.5px !important;
}

.wpt_comment_meta {
   margin-top: 4px !important;
   margin-bottom: 4px !important;
   line-height: 0px !important;
}

.wpt_comment_meta a {
    font-size: 11.5px !important;
    font-weight: normal !important;
    line-height: 18px !important;
}

.wpt_thumbnail .wp-post-image {
    width: 28px;
    height: 28px;
    object-fit: cover;
}

.wpt_widget_content .tab-content li {
    border: none !important;
    margin: 0px !important;
}

.has-3-tabs {
   width: 100.3% !important;
}

.has-3-tabs li {
   clear: none !important;
}

.has-3-tabs a {
   border: none !important;
   background-color: #fff !important;
   font-weight: normal !important;
   font-size: 12px !important;
   line-height: 24px !important;
}

.has-3-tabs a:hover {
   color: #666666 !important;
}

.has-3-tabs .selected {
   border-bottom: 2px solid #666;
}

.has-3-tabs .selected a {
   font-weight: bold !important;
   color: #666666 !important;
}

Tip: The plugin determines popular posts based on the plugin’s view counter. When the plugin is first installed, all your posts will have a 0 views value. Until you or your visitors start hitting pages on your site, the plugin will randomly choose posts to show in the popular posts tab. If you do not want to wait for traffic to your site, or you want to replicate the list of popular posts you had previously before Kriesi removed the combo widget,

0. Make sure you have your database backed up, just in case!
1. Go to WP Admin > Posts, mouseover the title of your posts, and look at the URL in your browser’s status bar (at the bottom of your browser window)
2. Make note of the post_id (the url will include “post=x”) for the post whose view count you want to modify (do this for each post you want to modify)
3. Go into your web host’s control panel, to phpMyAdmin > youraccount_wp* (your WP database) > wp*_postmeta > Search (tab)
4. Query for the post_id assigned to the post you want to raise or lower in the popular posts widget.
5. Locate the “_wpt_view_count” meta_key, then change the “meta_value”. The higher the number, the higher it will appear in the popular posts tab.
6. Repeat steps 3-5 for each post.

Ta da! Your beloved combo widget is back. Enjoy!

Ismael, I am mystified as to how to “Replace the background value with a gif image” in the code that you supplied. Would you mind posting an example of what the final code would look like?
Thanks in advance!