In Part One of this step-by-step tutorial, we explained the basics of how to use widgets in WordPress.
In this section we are going to show you how to configure various WordPress widgets.
Configuring Widgets
In a default WordPress installation, your site comes with a number of preinstalled widgets that can be used out of the box with minimal to no configuration required, such as widgets that let you display links to your pages, filter posts by categories, news items, adding tag clouds, etc.
(In a default WordPress installation, your site comes with a number of active widgets)
How To Set Up Sidebar Widgets: Step-By-Step Tutorial
In this tutorial, you will add, configure and reorder various frequently-used WordPress widgets, including:
- Adding a Support Contact graphic linking to your support page.
- Adding a Categories section.
- Add a Recent Posts section to display your latest posts.
- Adding a list of the site’s main Pages.
- Display a list of useful Links on the sidebar navigation area.
- Displaying the latest news with an RSS Feed section.
- Adding tag links using a Tag Cloud.
- Adding and configuring an Archives section to your sidebar.
The Widgets area can be easily accessed inside the administration by going to Appearance > Widgets …
(WordPress Widgets Menu)
This brings up the Widgets screen in your browser …
(Widgets Panel)
Let’s start to configure your widgets …
Add A Text Widget
Text widgets are versatile …
(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)
Text widgets let you insert just about anything you want into your sidebar or other widget sections, such as article snippets, maps and directions, messages and more to your site … simply by typing in text or pasting HTML into the content area. You can also give the widget a title. Remember to save your settings when done …
(A text widget is really versatile!)
Example: Use A Text Widget To Add A Help Button To The Sidebar Area
For this example, we’ll set up a clickable contact button on your sidebar that takes 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, create or source a graphic image that your visitors can click on …
We’ll set up a clickable Help button to display at the top of your sidebar navigation menu like in the example shown below …
Step 1 – Upload your image.
Upload the button image to the images folder in your server and write down the path to your image location.
E.g. …
http://www.yourdomain.com/images/supportbutton.jpg
This information will be used in Step 3.
In order for visitors to go to your contact page when the graphic button is clicked, you will need to 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 destination page.
Create a contact page and note the page URL …
Step 3 – Create 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. Basically, we just need to create the instructions for your clickable image.
Your instructions can be typed in a plain text file and will look something like this …
- Replace “http://www.yourdomain.com/contact-us” in the code with the URL of your contact page location.
- Replace “http://yourimagelocation.com/img/supportbutton.jpg” in the code with the URL of your image location.
The image below shows which sections of the above sample code you will need to replace with the actual web addresses …
Replace the above URLs and then copy all of your text file content to your clipboard when finished.
If you need help understanding basic HTML code, see this tutorial:
Next, go back to your Widgets area …
(Widgets Screen)
Step 4 – Add a Text widget.
Add a Text widget to your sidebar where you would like the support button to display.
In the Available Widgets area, select a Text widget …
(WordPress text widget)
Drag the Text widget to your Active Widgets section and release the widget at the top of the Widget Area …
(Dragging and dropping your Text widget)
Step 5 – Configure the widget settings.
Click on the Text widget title bar to configure the widget options. Paste the code with the links to your contact page and graphic button into your text widget content area and click save …
Add a heading to the widget if you want (e.g. “Need Help?”, “Support”, etc.) and paste the code with the correct destination URLs into the Content box, then click Save when done …
Note: Make sure to test your contact page and image links before pasting scripts into your Text Widget, or your button won’t work.
*** If using WordPress version pre-4.8 ***
If adding text with no formatting tags, you may want to tick the Automatically add paragraphs box to wrap each block of text in an HTML paragraph code (note: not required if you’re pasting in formatted HTML code like we’re using in the example for this tutorial).
Here is some text with Automatically add paragraphs option not ticked …
(Automatically add paragraphs option unchecked)
Here is some text added to a Text widget with Automatically add paragraphs box ticked …
(Automatically add paragraphs option checked)
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Step 6 – Refresh the web browser.
After adding your text widget and HTML code, go to your site and refresh your web browser. If all links have been entered correctly, then your support button will display in the sidebar menu …
(Clickable button widget on sidebar)
The screenshot above shows a clickable button in the sidebar of a newly-installed WordPress site.
Step 7 – Test your widget.
The final step is to ensure that your destination link works. Test this by clicking the graphic button. If you are taken directly to your support page, then your text widget has been set up correctly …
(Test the text widget to make sure you’ve set up everything correctly)
Tips:
If you would like a new window to open up when visitors go to the contact page (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 that says: target=”_blank” in the html code):
When inserting images into your sidebar navigation area, make sure that the width of your image doesn’t exceed the width of your sidebar column, especially if you are using a non-responsive WordPress theme. As we’ve previously mentioned, some themes may display elements differently depending on their templates and their layout. Some sidebars are wide and some are narrow. If your theme’s sidebar is narrower than the width of the button images, then you may have to either adjust the image size, or the column width to make elements display correctly on your sidebar.
(Make sure that the image width does not exceed the width of the sidebar column)
More Tips:
- If you don’t want to center the image inside your sidebar, delete the <center> and </center> tags from the beginning and end of the HTML code. The image will then be aligned to its default settings (normally left-aligned).
- Link the help button to any URL you like (e.g. to an external site, helpdesk, forum, etc.) and change this anytime by editing the code in your text widget.
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This is the end of section 2 of this tutorial.
To view Part Three, click here:
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