In Part 1 of this tutorial series, we explained the basics of using WordPress widgets.
In this section you will learn how to begin configuring various WordPress sidebar widgets.
Configuring Widgets
In a default WordPress installation, your site comes with a number of built-in active widgets, such as widgets that let you display links to your pages, filter posts by categories, news items, add a search box, etc.
(In a default WordPress installation, your site comes with a number of active widgets)
How To Add And Configure Commonly-Used WordPress Widgets On The WordPress Sidebar: Tutorial
In this tutorial, we will add, configure and reorder s number of WordPress widgets to display in the site’s sidebar, including:
- Add a Support graphic button linking to the help page.
- Adding a Categories section with a drop down menu.
- Add a Recent Posts section.
- Add a list of Pages.
- Display important Links on your sidebar.
- Adding an RSS Feed section.
- Adding a Tag Cloud.
- Configure how your Archived Posts display on the sidebar.
To use widgets, access the Widgets area located inside your administration by going to Appearance > Widgets …
(WordPress Widgets Menu)
This brings up the Widgets section in your browser window …
(Widgets Panel)
Let’s begin by learning how to configure a text widget …
Adding Text Widgets To The Sidebar Section
Text widgets are quite useful …
(Text widget)
Rich Text Widget
From version 4.8 onward, WordPress has added native rich-text editing capabilities to text widgets …
(Rich Text Widget)
This lets you quickly and easily format text, create lists, add emphasis, and insert links into your sidebar text …
(Format text easily with the new text widget)
Text widgets let you insert just about anything you want into your sidebar or other widget sections, such as email and contact information, videos, special promotions and more to your site … just type in text or paste HTML into the content area. You can also give the widget a title. Remember to save your settings when done …
(Text widgets are versatile!)
Example: Add A Support Button To The Sidebar Navigation Area Using A Text Widget
For this example, let’s set up a help button on the sidebar navigation menu that will take visitors to a page on your site (or an external site, e.g. a helpdesk) where they can contact you for help and support.
First, create or source a graphic image that visitors can click on …
We’ll set up the clickable Help button to display at the top of the sidebar section like in the example shown below …
Step 1 – Upload your image.
To display the clickable button image on your site, you must first upload the button image to your server and note the address of your server’s image location.
For example …
http://www.yourdomain.com/images/supportbutton.jpg
You will need this information in Step 3.
For someone to be taken to the contact page when they click on the help button, you will need to either create a contact page, or have an existing destination page already set up (e.g. a helpdesk). We will link your button graphic to this URL in Step 3 …
Step 2 – Create your contact page.
Create a contact page and note its URL …
Step 3 – Create your text widget code.
If you’re not a technical-minded person, don’t worry … this sounds a lot more technical than it is. Basically, you just need to create the instructions for your clickable button.
Your instructions can be written a plain text file and should look something like this …
- Replace “http://www.yourdomain.com/contact-us” in the code with the URL of your contact page location.
- Replace “http://yourimagelocation.com/img/supportbutton.jpg” in the code with the URL of your image location.
The screenshot below shows which sections of the above code you will need to replace with your actual web addresses …
Replace the above URLs and then copy the above code to your clipboard when finished.
If you need help with basic HTML code, see this tutorial:
Go back to your Widgets area …
(Widgets Panel)
Step 4 – Add a Text widget.
Add a Text widget to your sidebar where you would like the support button to display.
In the Available Widgets area, select a Text widget …
(WordPress text widget)
Drag the Text widget to the Active Widgets section and release it at the top of the Widget Area …
(Dragging and dropping your Text widget)
Step 5 – Configure the widget.
Click on the widget title bar to configure the widget settings. Paste the code with the links to your contact page and graphic button into the text widget content area and click the save button …
Add a heading to the widget if you want (e.g. “Need Help?”, “Support”, etc.) and paste the code with the correct URLs into the Content box, then click Save when done …
Note: Make sure to test your contact page and button image URLs before pasting scripts into the Text Widget, or your clickable button will not work.
*** If using WordPress version pre-4.8 ***
If you’re adding text without formatting tags like paragraph breaks, you may want to tick the Automatically add paragraphs box to wrap each block of text in an HTML paragraph code (note: not required if you’re typing in formatted content like we’re doing in this tutorial).
Here is some text with Automatically add paragraphs option unchecked …
(Automatically add paragraphs option not ticked)
Here is some text added to a Text widget with Automatically add paragraphs box ticked …
(Automatically add paragraphs option ticked)
***
Step 6 – Refresh the web browser.
Once you have added your widget and HTML code, visit your site and refresh the browser. If all links have been entered correctly, then the clickable support button should display in your site’s sidebar menu …
(Clickable support button widget on blog sidebar)
The screenshot above shows the support contact button in the sidebar navigation area of a brand new WordPress site.
Step 7 – Test your widget.
The last step is to ensure that the destination link works. Test this by clicking on the help button. If you are taken to the support page, then the text widget has been set up correctly …
(Test the text widget to make sure you’ve set up everything correctly)
Text Widgets – Useful Tips:
If you want a new browser window to open up when visitors click on the help button (so they don’t leave the page they’re on), then change the text widget code from this:
To this (i.e. include the part that says: target=”_blank” in your html code):
When inserting images into your sidebar section, make sure that the width of your image doesn’t exceed the width of your sidebar column, especially if you are using a non-responsive WordPress theme. As mentioned earlier, some themes may display elements differently depending on their templates and layout. Some sidebars may be too wide or too narrow. If the sidebar of your theme is narrower than the width of your graphic image, then you may have to either adjust the size of your images, or the column width to make graphics display correctly on your sidebar area.
(Adjust column width or reduce image size)
More Tips:
- If you don’t want your button image to be centered inside your sidebar, delete the <center> and </center> tags from the beginning and end of the code. The image will then be aligned to its default settings (normally left-aligned).
- Link the support button to any destination you like (e.g. to an external site, helpdesk, forum, etc.) and change this anytime by editing the code in the text widget.
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This is the end of part two of this tutorial series about using Widgets.
To view the rest of this tutorial series, click this link:
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"These tutorials have so much information and are easy to understand. If you use WordPress or plan to in the future these will help you with everything you need to know." - Valisa (Mesa, Arizona)