In Part One of this tutorial series, we explained how to use WordPress widgets and in Part Two, you learned how to configure a text widget.
In this tutorial you are going to learn how to configure other default widgets.
Add A Post Categories Section
Now that you know how to set up a text widget containing a support button, let’s configure a widget to display Post Categories.
By default, the Categories widget displays on the sidebar navigation area. All you have to do, therefore, is place this widget wherever you want your post categories to display by clicking and dragging it in your sidebar area …
(WordPress Categories widget)
Before adding a Categories widget to your sidebar area, we recommend configuring your categories first …
(Categories Panel)
Note: We plan to provide step-by-step tutorials that explain how to set up and use categories.
Configure the Categories settings for your widget as described below:
- In Title: type something that will make sense to visitors, for example, “Choose A Topic…” (1)
- If you have too many categories, check Display as dropdown (this significantly reduces the length of your widget 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 area. (2)
- You can 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 …
(Configuring a Categories widget)
Load the site in your web browser or reload your page to see how your content will look to your 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 box unchecked.
- To display the number of posts published in each category, enable the Show post counts check box …
(Category widget options – Post Count Enabled vs Post Count Disabled)
Add Recent Posts To The Sidebar
The Recent Posts widget normally shows on your sidebar by default. All you need to do is configure this widget.
Click on the Recent Posts title bar to configure its settings …
(Recent Posts WordPress widget)
There’s really not much to configure in this widget. You can add a title if you want, select the number of posts to display and display post dates. If you want to use the default setting for Number of posts to show, then just leave the widget as is, otherwise enter the number of posts to show and click Save when done …
(Recent Posts WordPress widget settings)
The most recent number of posts you have specified will be listed on the sidebar navigation section …
(Recent Posts widget added to sidebar navigation section)
For a tutorial on how to create and edit WordPress Posts, go here: How To Create A New Post In WordPress
Add Links To Your Site’s Pages
Next, we’ll add a widget to your sidebar navigation menu for listing pages.
Find a Pages widget in the Available Widgets section …
(Pages Widget)
Drag the Pages widget to your sidebar widget area …
(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 Information“) (1)
- Sort by: Sort how your pages display: by title (i.e. alphabetically), by page order, or by page ID. (2)
- Exclude: Hide selected pages on your sidebar navigation menu (3) …
(WordPress 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 from the Sort by: drop-down menu …
(WordPress Pages Widget settings – sort options)
To prevent pages from displaying in your widget, type or paste in the Page Ids for the pages you want to exclude separated by commas into the Exclude field of the Pages widget …
(WordPress Pages Widget settings – excluding pages by ID)
How to find a post or page ID in WordPress is explained here: How To Find The ID Of Posts And Pages In A WordPress Website
Click the Save button when done and click Close at the bottom of the widget box to minimize your widget.
Links to your site’s pages will now appear on your sidebar area …
(WordPress Pages Widget on sidebar)
Tip: You can add multiple Pages widgets to your sidebar navigation section. This is useful if you want to display separate page groups on the sidebar menu (e.g. “Products”, “Legal Pages” etc.)
Add Links To The WordPress Sidebar
Now, let’s add a Links widget to your sidebar section.
Before adding the Links widget to the sidebar navigation menu, we first recommend setting up the Links section inside your WP dashboard …
(WordPress Links section)
Note: Setting up and using the WordPress Links feature will be explained in other tutorials.
To add the widget, select a Links widget in the Available Widgets section …
(Links Widget)
Drag the Links widget to your sidebar 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 …
(WordPress Links Widget Settings)
You can add as many separate ‘Link Widgets’ to the sidebar menu 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 Your Sidebar)
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 display immediately on your WordPress sidebar …
(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 sidebar menu.
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This is the end of section three of this tutorial.
Click on this link to access the rest of this tutorial series:
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