In Part One of this tutorial, we explained how to use widgets in WordPress and in Part 2, you learned how to configure a text widget.
In this tutorial we will continue configuring other commonly-used WordPress widgets.
Add A Post Categories Widget To Your Blog Sidebar
Now that you have configure a text widget containing a support button, let’s configure a widget to display your Post Categories.
The Categories widget already displays on the sidebar navigation menu by default. Place this widget wherever you want your categories to display by clicking and dragging it in your sidebar area …
(WordPress Categories widget)
Before adding a Categories widget to your sidebar navigation section, you will first need to configure your Post Categoriessection inside the WordPress dashboard …
(WordPress Post Categories Panel)
Note: We plan to provide tutorials on how to set up and use categories.
Configure your Categories widget settings as shown below:
- In Title: type something that blog readers will understand, for example, “Choose A Topic…” (1)
- Check Display as dropdown if you have too many categories (this significantly reduces the length of the content by displaying all categories inside a drop-down menu). If you plan to publish posts under a few categories only, then leave the Display as dropdown box unchecked. (2)
- Leave the default settings for the remaining options, or see the additional notes on configuring the Categories widget below.
- Click Save to update your settings …
(Categories widget settings)
Click Visit Site or reload the page to see how the content will look to visitors …
(WordPress Categories widget added to sidebar navigation section)
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 option, otherwise leave this section as is.
- 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 To Your Sidebar
The Recent Posts widget displays on your sidebar by default. All you need to do is configure the widget.
Click on its widget title bar to display the configuration settings …
(Recent Posts widget)
There is 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 want to use the default Number of posts to show setting, then just leave the widget as is, otherwise enter a number of posts to show and click Save when done …
(Recent Posts widget settings)
Your most recent posts will now display to visitors on the sidebar navigation menu …
(Recent Posts widget added to sidebar)
For a tutorial on how to create and edit WordPress Posts, go here: How To Create A New Post In WordPress
Adding A Pages Widget To Your Sidebar Navigation Menu
Next, let’s add a widget to your sidebar for listing pages.
Find a Pages widget in the Available Widgets section …
(WordPress Pages Widget)
Drag the Pages widget to your sidebar widget section …
(Adding a Pages widget to the sidebar navigation section)
The Pages widget lets you configure the following settings:
- Title: Add a title to display above your links (e.g. “Site Info“) (1)
- Sort by: Sort how your pages display: by title (i.e. alphabetically), by page order, or by page ID. (2)
- Exclude: Use this setting to prevent pages from showing on the sidebar menu (3) …
(Pages Widget settings)
By default, pages are displayed by title in alphabetical order. If you want to display pages using one of the other options, then choose a different method in the Sort by: drop-down menu …
(WordPress Pages Widget settings – sort options)
To prevent pages from showing in your sidebar, simply enter their Page Ids separated by commas into the Exclude field of the widget …
(WordPress Pages Widget settings – exclude pages by ID)
To learn how to find a WordPress post or page ID, see this tutorial: Finding WordPress Page And Post IDs
Click the Save button when finished and click Close at the bottom of the widget box to minimize the widget.
Links to your blog’s main pages will now appear on the sidebar menu …
(Pages Widget on sidebar)
Tip: You can add multiple Pages widgets to the sidebar section. This is helpful if you would like to display different page groups on the sidebar area (e.g. “Products”, “Legal Pages” etc.)
Display Links On The Sidebar
Now, we’ll add a Links widget for displaying external links on the WordPress sidebar.
Before adding a Links widget to the sidebar navigation area, we recommend configuring the Links feature inside the WP dashboard first …
(WordPress Links section)
Note: We are currently putting together tutorials on configuring and using the Links feature in WordPress.
To add the widget, select a Links widget in the Available Widgets section …
(WordPress Links Widget)
Drag it 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 menu …
(Links Widget Settings)
You can add as many separate ‘Link Widgets’ to your 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 WordPress Links Widgets To Your 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. Your widget will display immediately on your site …
(External links added to sidebar)
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 three of this series of tutorials about how to use Widgets.
Click on this link to continue reading:
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