In Part One of this tutorial, we explained how to use widgets in WordPress and in Part Two, we explained how to configure a text widget.
In this tutorial you are going to learn how to configure other widgets.
Add A Post Categories Section To Your Sidebar Menu
Now that you know how to configure a text widget containing a help button, let’s configure a widget to display Categories.
By default, the Categories widget displays on the sidebar. All you need to do, therefore, is place this widget wherever you want your categories to display by clicking and dragging it in the sidebar area …
(Post Categories widget)
your your WordPress post categories …
(Categories Panel)
Note: We are currently putting together tutorials on how to use WordPress post categories.
Configure the Categories settings for this widget as described below:
- In Title: type something that will make sense to your visitors, for example, “Choose A Topic…” (1)
- If you plan to have several categories, check Display as dropdown (this significantly reduces the size of your content by displaying all categories in a drop-down menu). Leave the box unticked if you want a list of all categories to display on your sidebar. (2)
- You can 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)
Click Visit Site or reload the page to see how the Categories widget will look to your blog readers …
(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 box unticked.
- To display the number of posts published in each category, tick the Show post counts check box …
(Category widget options – Post Count Enabled vs Post Count Disabled)
Add A Recent Posts Section
The Recent Posts widget is typically added to the sidebar by default. All you need to do is configure this widget.
Click on your Recent Posts title bar to configure its settings …
(Recent Posts WordPress widget)
There’s really very little to configure. You can add a title, select the number of posts to display and opt to display post dates. If you’re happy to use the default setting for Number of posts to show, then just leave the widget as is, otherwise enter a number of posts to show and click Save …
(Recent Posts WordPress widget settings)
The most recent number of posts you’ve specified will appear on the sidebar …
(Recent Posts WordPress widget displayed on sidebar navigation section)
How to create WordPress Posts is explained in this step-by-step tutorial: How To Create A New Post In WordPress
Add A Pages Widget To Your Sidebar
Next, let’s add a widget to your sidebar navigation area for listing pages.
Find a Pages widget in the Available Widgets section …
(Pages Widget)
Drag the Pages widget to your sidebar widget section …
(Dragging and dropping a Pages widget into the sidebar navigation area)
The Pages widget lets you configure the following options:
- Title: Add a title to the widget (e.g. “Pages“) (1)
- Sort by: Sort how your pages display: by title (i.e. alphabetically), by page order, or by page ID. (2)
- Exclude: Prevent pages from appearing on the sidebar navigation area (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 …
(Pages Widget settings – sort options)
To exclude certain pages from showing to visitors, just type or paste in their Page Ids separated by commas into the Exclude field of the widget …
(Pages Widget settings – exclude pages by ID)
A tutorial is provided on how to find a WordPress post or page ID here: How To Find The WordPress Page Or Post ID
Click the Save button when finished and then click Close at the bottom of the widget box to minimize the widget.
Links to your site’s main pages will now display in the sidebar …
(Pages Widget on sidebar)
Tip: You can add multiple Pages widgets to the sidebar navigation area. This is helpful if you would like to display separate groups of pages on your sidebar (e.g. “Products”, “Legal Pages” etc.)
Display Links On The Blog Sidebar
Next, we’ll add a widget for displaying external links on the WordPress sidebar.
Before adding a Links widget to the sidebar navigation section, you will first need to configure your Links feature inside the dashboard …
(WordPress Links screen)
Note: We are currently putting together tutorials on configuring WordPress Links.
To add the widget, find a Links widget in the Available Widgets section …
(Links Widget)
Drag the Links widget to your active area …
(Making Links Widget active)
The 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 the sidebar navigation area 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 Links Widgets To The Sidebar Navigation Area)
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 sidebar navigation menu)
As the above example shows, you can display specific links to your site visitors (e.g. a list for a specific link category only), and add multiple lists of links to your WordPress sidebar.
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This is the end of part 3 of this tutorial series.
Click here to read Part Four:
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"This is an awesome training series. I have a pretty good understanding of WordPress already, but this is helping me to move somewhere from intermediate to advanced user!" - Kim Lednum