How To Use And Configure WordPress Widgets – Part 4

Learn how to add and configure various useful WordPress widgets on your sidebar and how to create custom sidebar widgets …

How To Add Widgets To WordPressIn 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 Part 3, we began configuring various frequently-used widgets.

In this final section, we show you how to complete the step-by-step tutorial series by configuring a few more useful WordPress widgets.

Info

In WordPress v. 4.8, WordPress introduced new media widgets covering images, audio, and video, and an updated text widget that supports visual editing

WordPress 4.8 - WordPress Widget Updates

(WordPress 4.8 introduced new widget updates)

These widgets let you add content from your media library and media stored in other servers or storage locations (e.g. Google Drive, Dropbox, Amazon S3, etc.).

Let’s go through how to configure and use each of these widgets:

Rich Text Widget

From version 4.8 onward, WordPress has added native rich-text editing capabilities to text widgets …

Rich Text Widget

(Rich Text Widget)

This lets you format text, create lists, add emphasis, and insert links into your sidebar text quickly and easily …

(Format text easily with the new text widget)

To learn more about using text widgets in WordPress, see the tutorial below:

WordPress Image Widget

The WordPress Image Widget lets you add an image to your sidebar from your Media Library or an external storage location.

To add an image, drag an image widget to your active widgets area …

Image Widget

(Image Widget)

Click on ‘Add Image’ …

Let's add an image!

(Let’s add an image!)

Select an image from the Image Library, check or add image details (e.g. Caption, Alt text, Description, etc.) if desired and click the ‘Add to Widget’ button …

Select an image

(Select an image)

The image will automatically load into the widget area …

Image added to widget

(Image added to widget)

Add a Title to your image if you want, or leave the ‘Title:’ field blank and click ‘Save’ …

Save your image

(Save your image)

Preview your website and you should see the image displayed where you have placed your image widget …

Image added to website using image widget

(Image added to website using WordPress image widget)

If you want to link your image to an URL, go back to your image widget and click on ‘Edit Image’ …

Image Widget - Edit Image

(Image Widget – Edit Image)

Add a URL in the ‘Image Details’ > ‘Display Settings’ > ‘Link To’ screen and click the ‘Update’ button …

Link your image to an URL

(Link your image to an URL)

To add an image stored in an external server or remote location, locate and copy the URL of the image to your clipboard …

Copy image URL to your clipboard

(Copy image URL to your clipboard)

Go back to your image widget and click on ‘Replace Image’ …

Image Widget - Replace image

(Image Widget – Replace image)

The Media Library browser opens. Click on ‘Insert from URL’ and paste in the image URL copied to your clipboard, then click on ‘Add to Widget’  …

Add image URL

(Add image URL)

If you have previously added an image title in your widget, remember to replace it if required, then click ‘Save’ …

Save your new image

(Save your new image)

The new image will now display on your sidebar …

New image added using WordPress image widget

(New image added using WordPress image widget)

To learn more about adding images to WordPress, see this tutorial:

WordPress Video Widget

The WordPress Video Widget lets you add audio files to your sidebar from your Media Library, YouTube, Vimeo, or an external storage location.

To add a video to the sidebar, drag a Video widget to your active widgets area …

Drag a Video widget to your sidebar

(Drag a Video widget to your sidebar)

Click the ‘Add Video’ button …

Video widget - Add Video

(Video widget – Add Video)

Select a video from your media library or add a video URL and click the ‘Add to Widget’ button …

Add a video URL

(Add a video URL)

Add a title to the widget if desired and click ‘Save’ …

WordPress Video Widget - Save Button

(WordPress Video Widget – Save Button)

Your video will display on your site where the video widget has been added …

Video added using WordPress video widget

(Video added using WordPress video widget)

To learn more about adding video to WordPress, see this tutorial:

WordPress Audio Widget

The WordPress Audio Widget lets you add audio files like podcasts, music or a personal greeting to your sidebar from your media library or an external storage location.

To add an audio file to your sidebar, drag an audio widget to your active widgets area …

Add an audio widget to your sidebar

(Add an audio widget to your sidebar)

Click the ‘Add Audio’ button…

WordPress Audio Widget - Add Audio button

(WordPress Audio Widget – Add Audio button)

Select an audio file from your media library or insert the URL of an audio file stored in an external location …

Select your audio file

(Select your audio file)

Add a title to your widget if desired and click the ‘Save’ button …

Save the audio file on your audio widget

(Save the audio file on your audio widget)

Your site will now display an audio file to visitors where you have placed the audio widget …

Audio file added to your site using the WordPress Audio Widget

(Audio file added to your site using the WordPress Audio Widget)

To learn more about adding audios to WordPress, see this tutorial:

Add An RSS Widget

Let’s now add An RSS widget to your sidebar.

To add the widget, select an RSS widget in the Available Widgets section and drag it to your active area …

RSS Widget

(WordPress RSS Widget)

Enter the following information into the widget settings:

  1. RSS feed URL: Enter the RSS feed URL into this section.
  2. Feed Title: If you would like to add a widget feed, type it here.
  3. Items to display: Select the number of items you want to display in the sidebar from the drop-down menu.
  4. Display item content: Check this box if you would like to display the RSS feed content.
  5. Display item author: Check this box to show the RSS feed item author.
  6. Display item date: Check this box to display the RSS feed item date.

RSS Widget settings

(RSS Widget settings)

Experiment with different options to find the combination that best works for you.

The screenshot below shows the RSS Feed widget configured as per the above settings …

RSS Widget on blog sidebar

(WordPress RSS Widget added to sidebar)

The example below shows the RSS widget configured with additional options selected …

WordPress RSS Widget settings

(RSS Widget settings)

To learn more about using RSS feeds in WordPress, see this tutorial:

Adding A Tag Cloud Widget To Your Blog Sidebar

Let’s add A Tag Cloud widget to display a tag list on the sidebar.

Important

Tags appearing in the widget are listed in the Tags screen …

Tags screen

(WordPress Tags area)

To add the widget, find a Tag Cloud widget in the Available Widgets section and drag it to the sidebar area …

WordPress Tag Cloud Widget

(Tag Cloud Widget)

There’s really very little to configure in this widget. You can add a title if you want, and choose whether to display items in the tag cloud using Tags or Categories. Click Save when finished …

Tag Cloud Widget settings

(WordPress Tag Cloud Widget settings)

Your Tag cloud will now display on the sidebar navigation menu …

Tag cloud displaying WordPress tags

(Tag cloud set to display WordPress tags)

The example below shows a published Tag Cloud widget configured for displaying Categories instead of Tags

Tag cloud set to display post categories

(Tag cloud set to display WordPress post categories)

To learn more about using post tags in WordPress, see this tutorial:

How To Configure Your Archives Section In The Blog Sidebar

To complete this tutorial series, we’ll configure the default Archives Widget, which is another common widget.

As you keep publishing new posts in WordPress, your older posts begin to move further away from public view. Your posts are still there, it’s just not as visible.

The Archives Widget lets your visitors view WordPress posts that you may have published some months ago …

WordPress Archives Widget

(Archives Widget)

There is really very little to set up. You can add a title if you want, and choose whether to display items in the sidebar widget as a dropdown menu, and show the number of posts . Click Save when done …

Archives Widget settings

(WordPress Archives Widget settings)

The example below shows the Archives widget configured to display posts as a dropdown menu with number of posts enabled …

Archives widget on sidebar navigation area

(Archives Widget on blog sidebar)

Now that you know how to configure most of the commonly-used widgets in WordPress, let’s explore some other aspects of WordPress widgets.

WordPress Widgets – Useful Tips

Here are some useful features of WordPress widgets:

Add ‘Visibility’ Function To Widgets

Installing the Jetpack plugin not only adds many new widgets to your widgets area …

Jetpack Widgets

(Jetpack Widgets)

It also adds a useful ‘Visibility’ function to all WordPress widgets …

Jetpack adds 'Visibility' to all widgets

(Jetpack adds ‘Visibility’ to all widgets)

This function lets you specify whether to display or hide widgets from your sidebar based on conditions you set for a particular category, author, user. role, tag, date, or page …

Set conditions to show or hide widgets

(Set conditions to show or hide widgets)

This is a really useful function to have.

For example, you can:

  • Display a widget only on your home page or only on posts published under certain categories, tags, authors, dates, etc.
  • Configure widgets to display specific or time-sensitive announcements based on a post’s category, date, etc.
  • Configure widgets to display targeted ad banners based on a post’s category or tag.
  • Hide widgets from appearing on certain posts or pages to prevent users from being distracted (e.g. remove widgets with ads from your sales pages).
  • And more!

To learn more about using the Jetpack plugin, go here:

How To Override Default Sidebar Widgets

If you see widgets appearing on your site’s sidebar that aren’t showing up under your active sidebar inside the Appearance > Widgets section, it’s because some themes will display their own default set of widgets until you add widgets to your sidebar.

For example, the site below shows some widgets in the sidebar section …

Override Default WordPress Sidebar Widgets

If you look inside the Widgets area, however, you will see that no widgets have been added to the available widget areas …

How To Override Default Sidebar Widgets

This is because the above theme is using default widgets.

Once you add one or more widgets to an active widget area, the other widgets will disappear and be replaced with the newly-added widgets instead.

Note: If you don’t want anything to appear in your sidebar section, either use a theme page template without a widgets section or just add a blank Text widget to your sidebar.

Add a blank text widget …

Override Default Widgets

And the default widgets will not display in the sidebar/footer section …

How To Override Default WordPress Sidebar Widgets

Accessibility Mode

As we have shown you previously, WordPress lets you completely reorder how content displays in widgetized areas of your site sidebars, footers and navigation menus with just a few clicks of your mouse button, using drag-and-drop technology …

Rearrange sidebar layout using widgets to improve your site's user experience

(Reorganize sidebar layout with widgets to improve your site’s user experience)

In the above screenshot, for example, you can see that we have easily redesigned the sidebar by switching the search and testimonial sections. This is easily done by dragging and dropping the widgets into different positions inside the sidebar widget area.

Rearranging sidebar layout with widgets can improve user experience.

If, however, you find that you are unable to drag & drop widgets around (e.g. using a mobile device that doesn’t support dragging-and-dropping), you can still use widgets if you enable Accessibility Mode.

Enabling Accessibility Mode For Widgets

Enabling Accessibility Mode, via Screen Options, lets you use Add and Edit buttons instead of using drag-and-drop.

To enable Accessibility Mode, log into your dashboard and go to the Widgets section …

Widgets Menu

(WordPress Widgets Menu)

Click on Screen Options on the top right hand corner of the screen …

WordPress Widgets - Screen Options

(Widgets – Screen Options)

Click on Enable accessibility mode

Turn on accessibility mode

(Turn on accessibility mode)

Once accessibility mode has been enabled, the widgets in the Available Widgets section will display an Add link, and the widgets in the Active Widgets section will display an Edit link …

How To Enable Accessibility Mode For WordPress Widgets

If you click on a Widget’s Add link in the Available Widgets section …

Enable Accessibility Mode For WordPress Widgets

A screen opens up the selected widget with options for customizing the widget’s settings, selecting the location to add the widget, plus drop-down menus for specifying the position of the widget in your selected location (e.g. position “1”, “2”, “5”, etc.) …

How To Enable Widget Accessibility Mode

Click Save Widget to add the widget to the Active Widgets section, or click Cancel to go back to your previous screen …

How To Enable Accessibility Mode For Widgets

Click on an active widget’s Edit link …

Enabling Widget Accessibility Mode

A screen displays the selected widget with options for modifying the widget’s settings.

Click Save Widget to update your settings and return to the Active Widgets section, or click the Delete button to remove the widget from the Active Widgets area …

How To Enable Accessibility Mode For WordPress Widgets

Click on Disable accessibility mode in the Screen Options section to restore the drag-and-drop function to your Widgets …

Switch off accessibility mode

(Switch off accessibility mode)

How To Create Your Own Custom Sidebar Widgets – An Easy Cheat

Most widgets will either be installed by default when you create a new WordPress site, or be automatically added to your Available Widgets section when you install new plugins on your site.

If you want to create your own sidebar widget, then here is a really simple and easy way:

First, create a new Post and enter the content that you would like to display in your sidebar…

Create Your Own Custom Sidebar Widgets

Make sure that any images you use fit the maximum width of your sidebar area. Also, keep in mind that you don’t have a lot of room to add content on your sidebar navigation menu, so keep your information concise.

Also, don’t worry about publishing your Post – all we are looking for is to copy the content HTML to paste into a widget.

Once you have created your content in the WordPress post editor, switch to the Text tab …

Creating Your Own Sidebar Widgets

Select everything inside the editor window and copy it to your clipboard…

Creating Your Own Sidebar Widgets

Next, go into your Widgets Area.

Insert a new Text widget into your sidebar, paste the content from your clipboard into the content field and click Save

How To Create Your Own Sidebar Widgets

Your new custom widget will be added to the sidebar area…

Create Your Own Sidebar Widgets

(Create your own custom sidebar widgets)

Congratulations! Now you know how to use and configure sidebar widgets.

How To Add And Configure WordPress Widgets In The Site

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