In Part 1 of this tutorial, we explained the basics of using WordPress widgets.
In this tutorial you will learn how to configure various WordPress widgets.
How To Configure Widgets
In a default WordPress installation, your site comes with several built-in active widgets, such as widgets that let you display external links, filter posts by categories, news items, add a search box, etc.
(In a default WordPress installation, your site comes with a number of active widgets)
Setting Up Frequently-Used WordPress Widgets On Your Sidebar Menu: Tutorial
In this tutorial series, you will add, configure and reorder s number of WordPress widgets, including:
- Adding a Help graphic linking visitors to the contact page.
- Add a Categories section with a drop down menu.
- Adding a Recent Posts section to display your latest posts.
- Add a list of the site’s most important Pages.
- Display useful Links on your sidebar navigation menu.
- Add an RSS Feed section.
- Add a Tag Cloud.
- Configure how Archived Posts display on your sidebar area.
The Widgets section is located in your WP administration area and can be accessed by going to Appearance > Widgets …
(WordPress Widgets Menu)
This brings up the Widgets screen in your browser …
(Widgets Screen)
Let’s start to configure your sidebar widgets …
Add A Text Widget
Text widgets are incredibly 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 instructions, ads, forms and more to your site … simply by typing in text or inserting HTML into the widget content area. You can also add an optional title in the Title field. Remember to save your settings when done …
(Text widgets are really versatile!)
Example: Use A Text Widget To Add A Clickable Help Button To The Sidebar Menu
For this example, let’s set up a clickable contact 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 “help button” graphic image that you will want your visitors to click on …
We’ll set up the clickable button to display at the top of the sidebar menu like in the example shown below …
Step 1 – Upload your image.
To display an image on your site, the image must be uploaded to your server. Upload your image to your server and write down the URL pointing to your image location.
E.g. …
http://www.yourdomain.com/images/supportbutton.jpg
You will use this information in Step 3.
For someone to be taken to your contact page when they click on the graphic button, either create a contact page, or have an existing destination page already set up (e.g. a helpdesk). We will link your button graphic to this URL in Step 3 …
Step 2 – Create the contact page.
Create a contact page on your site and note down its URL …
Step 3 – Compose the HTML 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 linking the graphic image to the contact page/helpdesk.
Your code can be written a simple text editor 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 above with the URL of your image location.
The image below shows which sections of the above code you need to replace with the actual contact details …
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:
Next, go back into your Widgets area …
(Widgets Screen)
Step 4 – Add a Text widget.
Add a Text widget to your sidebar in the location where your support button should display.
In the Available Widgets area, select a Text widget …
(WordPress text widget)
Drag the Text widget to the Active Widgets section and release the widget at the top of the Widget Area …
(Drag and drop your WordPress text widget)
Step 5 – Configure the widget.
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 title to the widget if you want (e.g. “Need Help?”, “Get Help”, etc.) and paste the code with the correct destination links into the large text box, then click the save button …
Note: Remember to check all links before pasting scripts into your Text Widget, or your clickable button won’t work.
*** If using WordPress version pre-4.8 ***
If adding text without 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 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 not ticked)
Here is some text added to a Text widget with Automatically add paragraphs option ticked …
(Automatically add paragraphs box selected)
***
Step 6 – Refresh the browser.
After adding the widget and content, visit your site and refresh your web browser. If you have entered all of the links correctly, then your clickable support button will display in your sidebar menu …
(Clickable button widget on sidebar)
The screenshot above shows the support contact button added to a brand new WordPress site.
Step 7 – Test your button.
The last step is to ensure that the destination link works. Test your button to make sure that your visitors will go to the support page when they click on the graphic image. If you are taken to the contact page, then everything has been set up correctly …
(Test the clickable button)
Text Widgets – Useful Tips:
If you would like the 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 code):
When choosing images for your sidebar navigation section, make sure that the width of the image doesn’t exceed the width of the sidebar column, especially if you are using a non-responsive WordPress theme. Note that some themes may display different column widths depending on their templates and their layout. Some sidebars are wide and some are narrow. If the sidebar of your theme is narrower than the width of the button image, then you may need to either adjust the image size, or the column width to make elements display correctly on your theme.
(Make sure the image width does not exceed the width of the sidebar column)
Extra Tips:
- If you don’t want the button to be centered in your sidebar, delete the <center> and </center> tags from the beginning and end of the line of code. The image will then be left-aligned.
- Link your help button to any URL you like (e.g. to an external link, helpdesk, FAQ page, etc.) and change this anytime by editing the code in the text widget.
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This is the end of section 2 of this tutorial about using WordPress widgets.
Click here to view Part Three:
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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