In Part 1 of this tutorial, we explained the basics of using widgets in WordPress.
In this section you will learn how to configure various commonly-used WordPress widgets.
Configuring Commonly-Used WordPress Widgets
In a default WordPress installation, your site comes with a number of built-in active widgets, such as widgets that let you display external links, recent posts, text or HTML banners, add tag clouds, etc.
(In a default WordPress installation, your site comes with several built-in widgets)
How To Set Up Sidebar Widgets: Tutorial
In this step-by-step tutorial, we are going to add, configure and reorder s number of widgets, including:
- Add a Contact Us image linking to your contact page.
- Add a Categories section.
- Adding a Recent Posts section to display the latest posts.
- Add a list of the site’s Pages.
- Display useful Links on the sidebar.
- Displaying news items using an RSS Feed section.
- Adding tags to the sidebar through a Tag Cloud.
- Configure how Archived Posts display on the sidebar navigation area.
The Widgets area can be easily accessed inside the admin by going to Appearance > Widgets …
(Widgets Menu)
This brings up the Widgets panel in your browser …
(Widgets Area)
Let’s get started …
Add A Text Widget To The Sidebar
Text widgets are versatile …
(WordPress 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)
A text widget lets you insert just about anything you want into the sidebar menu or other widget sections, such as quotes, maps and directions, reviews and more to your site … simply type in text or paste HTML into the content area. You can also give the widget a title. Remember to save your settings …
(Text widgets are really versatile!)
Example: Use A Text Widget To Add A Clickable Contact Button To The Sidebar Navigation Section
For this example, let’s set up a clickable support button on your sidebar 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, you will need to create or source a graphic image that your visitors can click on …
We’ll set up the clickable Help button to display at the top of the sidebar area like in the example shown below …
Step 1 – Upload your image.
Upload the graphic image to the images folder in your server and note the path to your server’s image location.
E.g. …
http://www.yourdomain.com/images/supportbutton.jpg
You will need this information in Step 3.
In order for someone to be taken to the contact page when the help button is clicked, either create a contact page, or have an existing destination page already set up (e.g. a helpdesk). We will then link your button graphic to this URL in Step 3 …
Step 2 – Add the support page.
Create a contact page on your site and note down its URL …
Step 3 – Compose the code for your text widget.
If you’re not a technical-minded person, don’t worry … this sounds a lot more technical than it is. In simple terms, you just need to create the instructions linking the graphic image to the contact page.
Your instructions can be written a simple text editor and should look something like this …
- Replace “http://www.yourdomain.com/contact-us” in the code above with the URL of your contact page location.
- Replace “http://yourimagelocation.com/img/supportbutton.jpg” in the code above with the URL of your image location.
The image below shows the sections of the above code that you need to replace with your actual contact page and image URLs …
Replace the above URLs and then copy all of the above code to your clipboard when finished.
If you need help with basic HTML code, see this tutorial:
Now, go back to your Widgets screen …
(Widgets Area)
Step 4 – Add a Text widget.
Add a Text widget to your sidebar where you want the button to display.
In the Available Widgets area, select the Text widget …
(WordPress text widget)
Drag the Text widget to the Active Widgets section and release the widget at the very top of the Widget Area …
(Drag-and-drop your WordPress text widget)
Step 5 – Configure your widget settings.
Click on the Text widget title bar to configure the widget settings. Paste the code with the links to your contact page and graphic button into your text widget content area and click the save button …
Add a heading to the widget if you want (e.g. “Need Help?”, “Get Support”, etc.) and paste the code with the correct destination links into the Content box, then click the save button …
Note: Remember to test your contact page and image links before pasting scripts into the Text Widget, or the button will not work.
*** If using WordPress version pre-4.8 ***
If 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 paragraphs (note: this is not necessary if you’re pasting in code like we’re using in the example for this tutorial).
Here is some text with Automatically add paragraphs option not selected …
(Automatically add paragraphs option not ticked)
Here is some text with Automatically add paragraphs box ticked …
(Automatically add paragraphs box checked)
***
Step 6 – Refresh the browser.
Once you have added the text widget and code content, go to your site and refresh your browser. If all links have been entered correctly, then the support button should display at the top of the site’s sidebar menu …
(Clickable button widget on sidebar)
The screenshot above shows the contact button added to a newly-installed WordPress site.
Step 7 – Test your button.
The final step is to ensure that the clickable button works. Test this by clicking the button. You should be taken to the support page …
(Test your text widget)
Text Widgets – Useful Tips:
If you want your contact page to open in a new window when visitors click on the help (so they don’t leave the page they’re on), then change the text widget code from this:
To this (i.e. insert the section containing target=”_blank” in your html code):
When choosing images to add to your sidebar navigation menu, make sure that the width of your image does not exceed the width of your sidebar column, especially if you are using a non-responsive WordPress theme. Note that some themes may display elements differently depending on their templates and layout. Some sidebars are wide and some are narrow. If your theme’s sidebar is narrower than the width of the graphic images, then you may have to either adjust the image size, or the width of your sidebar column to make elements display correctly on your sidebar section.
(Adjust column width or reduce image size)
Additional Tips:
- If you don’t want to center the button image inside the sidebar, delete the <center> and </center> tags from the beginning and end of the line of code. The image will then be left-aligned.
- You can link the support button to any URL you want (e.g. to an external site, helpdesk, forum, etc.) and change this anytime by replacing the code in your text widget.
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This is the end of section 2 of this tutorial series.
To view the rest of this tutorial series, click this link:
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"Wow! I never knew there's so much to learn about WordPress! I bought one of the WordPress for Dummies three years ago, such authors need to be on this course!" - Rich Law, Create A Blog Now