Tag: Using Widgets

In Part 1 of this tutorial, we cover the basics of using WordPress widgets.

In this section you will learn how to begin configuring various frequently-used sidebar widgets in WordPress.

Widget Configuration

By default, your site comes with several pre-installed widgets, such as widgets that let you display links to your site’s pages, recent posts, newsfeeds, adding content search features, etc.

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

Adding Widgets To Your Blog Sidebar Menu: Step-By-Step Tutorial

In this step-by-step tutorial, you are going to add, configure and reorder s number of WordPress widgets, including:

• Adding a clickable Support Contact graphic button linking to your help page.
• Adding a Categories section with a drop down menu.
• Add a Recent Posts section.
• Add a list of the site’s Pages.
• Display Links on the sidebar area.
• Adding an RSS Feed section.
• Add a list of clickable tags through a Tag Cloud section.
• Add and configure an Archives section to the sidebar navigation section.

To access the Widgets area log into your WordPress dashboard and go to Appearance > Widgets …

(WordPress Widgets Menu)

This loads the Widgets screen in your web browser …

(Widgets Screen)

Let’s get started …

Adding Text Widgets

Text widgets are incredibly 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 your sidebar section or other widget sections, such as comments, ads, special promotions and more to your site … just type in text or insert HTML into the content area. You can also add an optional title in the Title field. Remember to save your settings when done …

(A text widget is really useful!)

Example: Add A Clickable Help Button To Your Sidebar Section Using A Text Widget

For this example, we’ll set up a clickable help button on your sidebar navigation section that takes your 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 you will use on your own site …

We’ll set up a clickable Help button to display at the top of the sidebar like in the example shown below …

Step 1 – Upload your image.

Upload the graphic image to your server’s images folder and write down the address of your server’s image location.

For example …

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

This information will be used in Step 3.

In order for someone to be taken to the contact page when they click on the help button, either create a contact page, or have an existing destination page already set up (e.g. a helpdesk). We will then link your button image to this URL in Step 3 …

Step 2 – Create the contact page.

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

Step 3 – Compose your text widget code.

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

Your code can be typed into a simple text file and will 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 with the URL of your image location.

The image below shows the sections of the above sample code that 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:

• A Basic Guide To HTML

Now, go back to your Widgets screen …

(Widgets Panel)

Step 4 – Add a Text widget.

Add a Text widget to your sidebar in the location where your button should display.

In the Available Widgets area, find the Text widget …

(WordPress text widget)

Drag your Text widget to your Active Widgets section and release it at the very top of the Widget Area …

(Drag-and-drop your Text widget)

Step 5 – Configure the widget.

Click on the Text widget title bar to configure the widget settings. Paste the code with the URLs to your contact page and graphic button into the text widget content area and click save …

Add a title section to your widget if you want (e.g. “Need Help?”, “Get Help”, etc.) and paste the code with the correct URLs into the text area, then click the save button …

Note: Remember to check all links before pasting scripts into the Text Widget, or the clickable 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: not required if you type in code like we’re doing in this tutorial).

Here is some text added to a Text widget with Automatically add paragraphs option not checked …

(Automatically add paragraphs option unchecked)

Here is some text with Automatically add paragraphs box ticked …

(Automatically add paragraphs box ticked)

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Step 6 – Refresh your browser.

Once you have added your text widget and code, go to your site and refresh your web browser. If you have entered all of the links correctly, then your clickable support button should display in the site’s sidebar menu …

(Clickable button widget on sidebar)

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

Step 7 – Test the widget.

The final step is to make sure that the clickable button works. Test this by clicking on the button. You should be taken to the support page …

(Test the clickable button)

Text Widgets – Useful Tips:

If you want the support page to open in a new browser window when visitors click on the help (so they don’t leave the page they’re in), then change the code from this:

To this (i.e. insert the part containing target=”_blank” in the code):

When inserting images into your sidebar navigation area, make sure that the width of your image doesn’t exceed the width of the sidebar column, especially if you are using a non-responsive WordPress theme. As mentioned earlier, 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 need to either adjust the image size, or the column width to make elements display correctly on your sidebar area.

(Adjust column width or reduce image size)

Additional Tips:

• If you don’t want the button to be centered in the sidebar, delete the <center> and </center> tags from the beginning and end of the code. The image will then be left-aligned.
• Link the help button to any destination you like (e.g. to an external link, contact form, forum, etc.) and change this anytime by editing the content in your widget.

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This is the end of part two of this series of tutorials.

Click on this link to keep reading:

• How To Add And Configure Widgets In WordPress – Part 3

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