In Part One of this step-by-step tutorial, we explained how to use widgets in WordPress and in Part Two, you learned how to configure text widgets.
In this tutorial you are going to learn how to configure other WordPress widgets.
Add Post Categories
Now that you have configure a text widget containing a clickable help button, let’s configure a widget for your Categories.
The Categories widget already displays on the sidebar by default. Place the widget wherever you want your categories to display by clicking and dragging it in your sidebar area …
(WordPress Post Categories widget)
Before adding a Categories widget to your sidebar, we recommend configuring your post categories inside the WP dashboard …
(WordPress Categories Panel)
Note: How to set up categories in WordPress will be covered in separate tutorials.
Let’s configure the Categories settings for this widget as shown below:
- In Title: type something that blog readers will understand, for example, “Choose A Topic…” (1)
- If you have too many categories, check Display as dropdown (this significantly reduces the length of the content by displaying all categories inside a drop-down menu). Leave the box unticked if you want a list of all categories to display on your sidebar. (2)
- Leave the remaining options unchecked, or see the additional notes on configuring the Categories widget below.
- Click Save to update your settings …
(Configuring a Categories widget)
Click Visit Site or reload your page to see how your sidebar categories will display to your 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 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 Widget To Your Sidebar Section
The Recent Posts widget normally appears on the sidebar by default. All you need to do is configure this widget.
Click on its widget title bar to display the configuration settings …
(Recent Posts widget)
There’s really very little to set up in this widget. You can add a title, select the number of posts to display and display post dates. If you’re happy with 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 navigation section …
(Recent Posts WordPress widget on sidebar)
To learn how to create and edit a WordPress Post, see this tutorial: How To Create A Post In WordPress
Display Your Site’s Pages In Your WordPress Blog Sidebar
Next, we’ll add a widget to your sidebar to display page links.
Find a Pages widget in the Available Widgets section …
(Pages Widget)
Drag the Pages widget to your widget section …
(Adding a Pages widget to the sidebar section)
The Pages widget lets you configure the following settings:
- Title: Add a title to display above your links (e.g. “Useful Information“) (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 your sidebar navigation area (3) …
(WordPress Pages Widget settings)
By default, pages are displayed by title in alphabetical order. If you want to display pages using another option, then choose a different method in the Sort by: drop-down menu …
(WordPress Pages Widget settings – sort options)
To prevent pages from displaying on your sidebar, simply type or paste in their Page Ids separated by commas into the Exclude field of the widget …
(Pages Widget settings – excluding pages)
How to find a post or page ID in WordPress is explained in this tutorial: How To Locate Post And Page IDs In Your WordPress Site
Click the Save button when finished and then click Close at the bottom of the widget box to minimize your widget.
Links to the blog’s pages will now display on the sidebar …
(WordPress Pages Widget on sidebar)
Tip: You can add multiple Pages widgets to the sidebar. This is handy if you would like to display different page groups on the sidebar (e.g. “Products”, “Legal Pages” etc.)
Display Links On Your Blog Sidebar
Now, we’ll add a Links widget to your sidebar area.
Before adding the Links widget to your sidebar, you will first need to configure the Links section inside the dashboard …
(WordPress Links section)
Note: We are currently putting together tutorials on setting up the WordPress Links feature.
To add the widget, select a Links widget in the Available Widgets section …
(WordPress Links Widget)
Drag the widget to your active 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 …
(WordPress 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 Links Widgets To The Sidebar Section)
You can sort links by Link title, Link rating, Link ID, or display links in Random order …
(WordPress 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 …
( Links widget: ‘Select Link Category’ drop-down menu)
When you have finished configuring the Links Widget, click the Save button. Your links will become immediately visible on your site …
(Links added to sidebar area)
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 lists of links to the sidebar area.
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This is the end of section 3 of this tutorial series.
Click on this link to keep reading:
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