Tag: Using Widgets

In Part One of this step-by-step tutorial, we cover the basics of how to use widgets in WordPress.

In this tutorial we are going to show you how to configure a number of commonly-used sidebar widgets in WordPress.

Configuring Commonly-Used WordPress Sidebar Widgets

In a default WordPress installation, your site comes with a number of built-in widgets that can be used out of the box with little to no configuration required, such as widgets that let you display links to your pages, filter posts by categories, RSS feed content, adding content search features, etc.

(By default, your site comes with several preinstalled widgets)

Adding Widgets To Your Sidebar Navigation Section: Step-By-Step Tutorial

In this step-by-step tutorial series, we will add, configure and reorder various WordPress widgets, including:

• Adding a Help image linking to your help page.
• Adding a Categories section.
• Adding a Recent Posts section to display your latest posts.
• Adding a list of Pages.
• Display Links on your sidebar.
• Display the latest news using an RSS Feed section.
• Adding clickable tags using a Tag Cloud section.
• Configure how your Archived Posts display on your sidebar.

The Widgets section is located inside your WordPress administration area and can be accessed by going to Appearance > Widgets …

(Widgets Menu)

This loads the Widgets panel in your browser window …

(Widgets Section)

Let’s begin configuring your sidebar menu widgets …

Text Widgets

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)

A text widget can be used to add article snippets, ads, forms and more to your site … simply by typing in text or adding HTML into the widget content area. You can also give the widget a title. Remember to save your settings when done …

(Text widgets are extremely versatile!)

Example: Add A Clickable Support Button To The Sidebar Section Using A Text Widget

For this example, we’ll set up a clickable help button on the 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 your visitors can click on …

We’ll set up the clickable Help button to display at the top of the sidebar 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 a folder on your server and note the path to your image location.

E.g. …

http://www.yourdomain.com/images/supportbutton.jpg

You will need this information in Step 3.

For someone to be taken to your contact page when the support button gets 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 link your button image to this URL in Step 3 …

Step 2 – Add the contact page.

Create a contact page on your site and note the page URL …

Step 3 – Compose the HTML code for your text widget.

Don’t worry … this sounds a lot more technical than it is. Basically, we just need to create the instructions for your clickable button.

Your code 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 code you need to replace with your actual contact details …

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, refer to this tutorial:

• Formatting Content With HTML Basics For Non-Technical WordPress Users

Now, go back into your Widgets section …

(Widgets Area)

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 it at the very top of the Widget Area …

(Dragging and dropping your WordPress text widget)

Step 5 – Configure the text 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 the 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 large text box, then click the save button …

Note: Remember to check your contact page and image URLs before pasting scripts into your Text Widget, or the clickable button will not work.

*** If using WordPress version pre-4.8 ***

If you’re adding text with no formatting tags, you may want to tick the Automatically add paragraphs box to wrap each block of text in paragraphs (note: not required if you’re typing in HTML content like we’re using in the example for this tutorial).

Here is some text with Automatically add paragraphs box not selected …

(Automatically add paragraphs box not ticked)

Here is some text with Automatically add paragraphs box checked …

(Automatically add paragraphs box checked)

***

Step 6 – Refresh your browser.

After adding the text widget and content, visit the front end of your site and refresh your browser. If all links have been entered correctly, then the clickable support button will display at the top of the site’s sidebar menu …

(Clickable button widget on blog sidebar)

The above screenshot shows a clickable button in the sidebar of a brand new WordPress site.

Step 7 – Test your widget.

The final step is to make sure that your links work. Test this by clicking on the help button. If you are taken directly to your contact page, then the text widget has been set up correctly …

(Test the text widget to ensure you’ve set up everything correctly)

Text Widgets – Useful Tips:

If you would like your contact page to display inside a new browser window when visitors click on the help (so they don’t leave the page they’re on), then change the button code from this:

To this (i.e. add the section that says: target=”_blank” in your html code):

When inserting images into your sidebar section, make sure that the width of the image does not exceed the width of the sidebar column, especially if you are using a non-responsive WordPress theme. Note that some themes can display elements differently depending on their templates and their layout. Some sidebars may be wider or narrower. If your theme’s sidebar is narrower than the width of your button images, then you may have to either adjust the size of your images, or the width of your sidebar column to make graphics display correctly on your theme.

(Adjust column width or reduce image size)

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 code. The image will then be aligned to its default settings (normally left-aligned).
• Link the support button to any URL you like (e.g. to an external site, helpdesk, FAQ page, etc.) and change this anytime by editing the links inside your widget.

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This is the end of section two of this tutorial.

Click here to continue:

• How To Add Widgets To Your WordPress Sidebar Section – Part 3

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