In Part 1 of this tutorial series, we explained how to use WordPress widgets and in Part Two, you learned how to configure a text widget.
In this section we are going to show you how to configure other commonly-used sidebar widgets.
Add A Post Categories Widget To Your Sidebar
Now that you have configure a text widget containing a clickable help button, let’s configure a widget to display your Categories.
The Categories widget displays on your sidebar navigation section by default. Place this widget wherever you want your post categories to display by clicking and dragging it on the sidebar widget area …
(WordPress Post Categories widget)
Before adding a Categories widget to your sidebar, you should first configure your post categories inside the dashboard …
(Categories)
Note: Using WordPress categories will be explained in separate tutorials.
Configure the Categories settings for your widget as described below:
- In Title: type something that visitors will understand, like “Choose A Topic…” (1)
- If you plan to use many categories, check Display as dropdown (this significantly reduces the length of your content by displaying all categories inside a drop-down menu). If you plan to publish posts under a few categories only, then leave the Display as dropdown box unticked. (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 your sidebar categories will look to your 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 box unticked.
- 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 To Your Blog Sidebar Menu
The Recent Posts widget normally displays on your sidebar by default. All you need to do is configure your widget.
Click on its title bar to configure its settings …
(Recent Posts WordPress widget)
There is really not much to set up here. You can add a title if you want, select the number of posts to display and display post dates. If you’re happy with the default Number of posts to show setting, then just leave the widget as is, otherwise enter a number of posts to show and click Save when done …
(Recent Posts WordPress widget settings)
The number of posts you have specified will be listed on your sidebar navigation menu …
(Recent Posts WordPress widget on sidebar)
To learn how to create a WordPress Post, see this tutorial: How To Create A Post In WordPress
Adding A Pages Widget To The Blog Sidebar Menu
Next, let’s add a widget to your sidebar menu to display page links.
Find a Pages widget in the Available Widgets section …
(Pages Widget)
Drag the Pages widget to your sidebar widget area …
(Dragging and dropping a Pages widget into your sidebar navigation section)
The Pages widget lets you configure the following settings:
- Title: Add a title to display above your links (e.g. “Useful Sections“) (1)
- Sort by: Sort how your pages display: by title (i.e. alphabetically), by page order, or page ID. (2)
- Exclude: Prevent pages from displaying on the sidebar (3) …
(Pages Widget settings)
By default, pages will be listed by title in alphabetical order. If you want to display pages using another option, then select a different method from the Sort by: drop-down menu …
(Pages Widget settings – sort options)
To exclude pages from showing to visitors, type or paste in their Page Ids separated by commas into the Exclude field of the widget …
(WordPress Pages Widget settings – excluding pages by ID)
Finding a post or page ID in WordPress is explained in this tutorial: How To Locate The Unique ID Of WordPress Posts And Pages
Click the Save button when finished and then click Close at the bottom of the widget box to minimize the widget.
Links to the blog’s main pages will now appear in the sidebar section …
(Pages Widget on sidebar)
Tip: You can add multiple Pages widgets to your sidebar navigation area. This is handy if you would like to display different groups of pages on your sidebar (e.g. “Products”, “Legal Pages” etc.)
Add Links To The Blog Sidebar
Next, let’s add a Links widget to the sidebar.
Before adding a Links widget to the sidebar, we recommend setting up the Links feature inside your dashboard …
(WordPress Links section)
Note: We are currently putting together tutorials on how to use Links.
To add the widget, select a Links widget in the Available Widgets section …
(Links Widget)
Drag it to your sidebar area …
(Making Links Widget active)
The Links 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 menu …
(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 Navigation Menu)
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 …
( Links widget: ‘Select Link Category’ drop-down menu)
When you have finished configuring the Links Widget, click the Save button …
(Links added to sidebar navigation menu)
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 section.
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This is the end of part three of this tutorial series on using Widgets.
To keep reading, click here:
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