In Part One of this tutorial series, we explained how to use widgets in WordPress and in Part 2, you learned how to configure a text widget.
In this section you will learn how to configure other default WordPress blog widgets.
Adding A Post Categories Widget
Now that you have set up a text widget containing a help button, let’s configure a widget for displaying Post Categories on the sidebar navigation section.
The Categories widget already displays on your sidebar by default. Place the widget wherever you want your categories to display by clicking and dragging it in the sidebar area …
(Categories widget)
Before adding a Categories widget to the sidebar navigation menu, you will first need to configure your categories inside the dashboard …
(WordPress Categories)
Note: We are currently putting together tutorials on setting up and using WordPress post categories.
Configure your categories widget settings as described below:
- In Title: type something that will make sense to your visitors, for example, “Choose A Topic…” (1)
- If you have too many categories, check Display as dropdown (this significantly reduces the size of the widget content by displaying all categories in a drop-down menu). Leave the box unchecked if you want a list of all categories to display on your sidebar. (2)
- You can leave the default settings for the remaining options, or see the additional notes on configuring this widget below.
- Click Save to update your settings …
(Configuring a Categories widget)
Click Visit Site or refresh the page to see how the sidebar categories will look to blog readers …
(Categories widget added to sidebar)
Tips:
- Change the default Uncategorized post category to something more meaningful.
- If you use nested categories on your site, you may want to check the Show hierarchy box, otherwise leave this option as is.
- To display the number of posts published in each category on your site, tick the Show post counts check box …
(Category widget options – Post Count Enabled vs Post Count Disabled)
Add Recent Posts
The Recent Posts widget displays on your sidebar area by default. All you need to do is configure this widget.
Click on your Recent Posts widget title bar to display the configuration settings …
(Recent Posts widget)
There’s really not much to set up in this widget. You can add a title if you want, select the number of posts to display and display post dates. If you want to use the default setting for Number of posts to show, then just leave the widget as is, otherwise enter the number of posts to show and click Save when done …
(Recent Posts widget settings)
The number of posts you have specified will appear on the sidebar area …
(Recent Posts WordPress widget added to sidebar)
Creating a new post in WordPress is explained here: How To Create A New Post In WordPress
Adding A Pages Widget
Next, let’s add a widget to your sidebar for listing pages.
Find a Pages widget in the Available Widgets section …
(Pages Widget)
Drag the Pages widget to your widget section …
(Adding a Pages widget to the sidebar area)
The Pages widget lets you configure the following settings:
- Title: Add a title to display above your links (e.g. “Site Info“) (1)
- Sort by: Sort how your pages display: by title (i.e. alphabetically), by page order, or by page ID. (2)
- Exclude: Use this setting to hide pages on your sidebar (3) …
(Pages Widget settings)
By default, pages are displayed by title in alphabetical order. If you want to display pages using one of the other options, then choose a different method from the Sort by: drop-down menu …
(Pages Widget settings – sort options)
To prevent certain pages from displaying on the widget, type or paste in the Page Ids for all the pages you would like excluded separated by commas into the Exclude field of the widget …
(Pages Widget settings – excluding pages by ID)
A step-by-step tutorial is provided on finding a WordPress page ID here: How To Locate The Post Or Page ID In WordPress
Click the Save button when done and then click Close at the bottom of the widget box to minimize the widget.
Links to your blog’s main pages will now appear in the sidebar …
(Pages Widget on blog sidebar)
Tip: You can add multiple Pages widgets to the sidebar. This is useful if you would like to display separate page groups on the sidebar (e.g. “Products”, “Legal Pages” etc.)
Add A Links Widget
Now, let’s add a Links widget for displaying external links on the WordPress sidebar.
Before adding the Links widget to the sidebar, we recommend first setting up the Links feature inside the WordPress dashboard …
(WordPress Links section)
Note: We are currently putting together tutorials on how to set up WordPress Links.
To add the widget, select a Links widget in the Available Widgets section …
(WordPress Links Widget)
Drag the Links widget to your active area …
(Making Links Widget active)
The widget offers a number of configurable options, including the ability to specify what information to show about your links and how many links you want to display on your sidebar section …
(WordPress Links Widget Settings)
You can add as many separate ‘Link Widgets’ to the sidebar as you want. As you will see in a moment, this lets you create and display specific lists of links on your site …
(Add Multiple WordPress Links Widgets To Your Sidebar)
You can sort links by Link title, Link rating, Link ID, or display links in Random order …
(WordPress Links widget: ‘Sort by:’ drop-down menu)
You can also create and display a list of items for a specific category, by selecting a link category from the ‘Select Link Category’ drop-down menu …
( WordPress Links widget: ‘Select Link Category’ drop-down menu)
When you have finished configuring your Links Widget, click the Save button …
(Links added to WordPress sidebar navigation section)
As the above example shows, you can display specific links to your site visitors (e.g. a list for a specific link category only), and add multiple link lists to the sidebar area.
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This is the end of section 3 of this tutorial series on how to use WordPress widgets.
To view Part Four, click this link:
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