In Part 1 of this tutorial series, we explained how to use WordPress widgets and in Part 2, we explained how to configure a text widget.
In this tutorial you will configure other commonly-used widgets.
Adding Post Categories To The Sidebar Navigation Section
Now that you have configure a text widget containing a clickable help button, let’s configure Post Categories.
The Categories widget displays on your sidebar section by default. All you have to do, therefore, is place the widget wherever you want your post categories to display by clicking and dragging it in your sidebar area …
(WordPress Categories widget)
your post categories …
(WordPress Categories)
Note: Configuring and using categories in WordPress will be covered in other tutorials.
Configure the Categories settings for this widget as shown below:
- In Title: type something that will make sense to visitors, like “Choose A Topic…” (1)
- If you plan to add several categories, check Display as dropdown (this significantly reduces the length of the widget content by displaying all categories inside a drop-down menu). Leave the box unchecked if you want a list of all categories to display on your sidebar. (2)
- Leave the default settings for the remaining options, or see the additional notes on configuring this widget below.
- Click Save when done …
(WordPress Categories widget settings)
Load the site in your web browser or refresh your page to see how your sidebar categories will display to site visitors …
(Categories widget added to sidebar)
Tips:
- Change the default Uncategorized post category to something more meaningful.
- If you use nested categories on your site, you may want to check the Show hierarchy box, otherwise leave this option as is.
- To display the number of posts published in each category, enable the Show post counts check box …
(Category widget options – Post Count Enabled vs Post Count Disabled)
Add A Recent Posts Widget
The Recent Posts widget normally shows on the sidebar by default. All you need to do is configure the widget.
Click on its widget title bar to configure its settings …
(Recent Posts widget)
There is really not much to set up in this widget. You can add a title, select the number of posts to display and display post dates. If you want to use the default Number of posts to show setting, then just leave the widget as is, otherwise change the number of posts and click Save when done …
(Recent Posts widget settings)
The number of posts you’ve specified will display on the sidebar navigation area …
(Recent Posts WordPress widget displayed on blog sidebar)
A tutorial is provided on creating posts in WordPress here: How To Create A Post In WordPress
Adding Links To Your Site’s Main Pages In The Sidebar
Next, we’ll add a widget to your sidebar menu for listing pages.
Find a Pages widget in the Available Widgets section …
(Pages Widget)
Drag the Pages widget to your sidebar widget section …
(Adding a Pages widget to the sidebar)
The Pages widget lets you configure the following options:
- Title: Add a title to the widget (e.g. “Site Info“) (1)
- Sort by: Sort how your pages display: by title (i.e. alphabetically), by page order, or page ID. (2)
- Exclude: Hide selected pages on the sidebar (3) …
(Pages Widget settings)
By default, pages will be listed by title in alphabetical order. If you want to display pages using another option, then choose a different method from the Sort by: drop-down menu …
(WordPress Pages Widget settings – sort options)
To prevent certain pages from showing on your sidebar, simply enter their Page Ids separated by commas into the Exclude field …
(Pages Widget settings – exclude pages by ID)
Finding a WordPress page ID is explained in this tutorial: How To Find The Unique ID Of Any WordPress Page Or Post
Click the Save button when done and then click Close at the bottom of the widget box to minimize your widget.
Links to the pages will now display on your sidebar …
(Pages Widget on sidebar)
Tip: You can add multiple Pages widgets to your sidebar navigation area. This is handy if you need to display separate groups of pages on your sidebar menu (e.g. “Products”, “Legal Pages” etc.)
Display Links On The WordPress Sidebar Section
Now, let’s add a widget to the WordPress sidebar navigation section to display links to external resources.
Before adding a Links widget to the sidebar, you will first need to configure the Links feature inside your dashboard …
(WordPress Links section)
Note: We are currently putting together tutorials on how to set up and use the WordPress Links feature.
To add the widget, select a Links widget in the Available Widgets section …
(WordPress Links Widget)
Drag the Links widget to your sidebar area …
(Making Links Widget active)
The Links widget offers a number of configurable options, including the ability to specify what information to show about your links and how many links you want to display on your sidebar …
(Links Widget Settings)
You can add as many separate ‘Link Widgets’ to your sidebar as you want. As you will see in a moment, this lets you create and display specific lists of links on your site …
(Add Multiple WordPress Links Widgets To Your Sidebar)
You can sort links by Link title, Link rating, Link ID, or display links in Random order …
(Links widget: ‘Sort by:’ drop-down menu)
You can also create and display a list of items for a specific category, by selecting a link category from the ‘Select Link Category’ drop-down menu …
( WordPress Links widget: ‘Select Link Category’ drop-down menu)
When you have finished configuring your Links Widget, click the Save button …
(External links added to WordPress sidebar)
As the above example shows, you can display specific external links to your site visitors (e.g. a list for a specific link category only), and add multiple link lists to your sidebar.
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This is the end of section three of this series of tutorials about using WordPress widgets.
Click on this link to continue:
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