In Part One of this step-by-step tutorial, we cover the basics of using widgets in WordPress.
In this section you will learn how to configure several widgets in WordPress.
How To Configure Widgets
In a default WordPress installation, your site comes with a number of preinstalled widgets, such as widgets for displaying external links, filter posts by categories, newsfeeds, filter content by publish dates, etc.
(In a default WordPress installation, your site comes with a number of pre-installed widgets)
Configuring Sidebar Widgets: Tutorial
In this tutorial series, you will add, configure and reorder s number of WordPress widgets to display in the site’s sidebar, including:
- Adding a clickable Support button linking to the support page.
- Add a Categories section with a drop down menu.
- Adding a Recent Posts section to display your latest posts.
- Adding a list of Pages.
- Display Links on the sidebar area.
- Display newsfeeds using an RSS Feed section.
- Adding a Tag Cloud section.
- Add and configure an Archives section to your sidebar.
To access the Widgets section log into your WordPress dashboard and go to Appearance > Widgets …
(WordPress Widgets Menu)
This brings up the Widgets panel into your browser window …
(Widgets Area)
Let’s configure text widgets …
Adding Text Widgets
Text widgets are quite useful …
(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 the sidebar or other widget sections, such as policies, videos, messages and more to your site … just type in text or insert HTML into the widget content area. You can also add an optional title in the Title field. Remember to save your settings …
(A text widget is very useful!)
Example: Using A Text Widget To Add A Help Button To The Sidebar Section
For this example, we’ll set up a clickable help button on your sidebar 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 your visitors can click on …
We’ll set up a clickable button to display at the top of the sidebar navigation menu like in the example shown below …
Step 1 – Upload your image.
Upload the button image to your server’s images folder and note the path to your image location.
For example …
http://www.yourdomain.com/images/supportbutton.jpg
You will use this information in Step 3.
For visitors to be taken to the contact page when the graphic button is clicked, either create a contact page, or have an existing destination page already set up (e.g. a helpdesk). We will then link your button graphic to this URL in Step 3 …
Step 2 – Add the contact page.
Create a contact page and note 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. In simple terms, we just need to create the instructions linking the graphic image to the contact page.
Your code can be composed 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 above with the URL of your image location.
The image below shows the sections of the above sample code that you need to replace with your actual contact details …
Replace the above URLs and then copy 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 panel …
(Widgets Screen)
Step 4 – Add a Text widget.
Add a Text widget to your sidebar where you would like the button to display.
In the Available Widgets area, select the Text widget …
(WordPress text widget)
Drag the Text widget to the 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 its 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 title section to your widget if you want (e.g. “Need Help?”, “Get Support”, etc.) and paste the code with the correct destination URLs into the Content area, then click Save when done …
Note: Make sure to test your contact page and button image URLs before pasting scripts into the Text Widget, or your button won’t work.
*** If using WordPress version pre-4.8 ***
If you’re 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 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 box not ticked …
(Automatically add paragraphs box not checked)
Here is some text with Automatically add paragraphs box ticked …
(Automatically add paragraphs option checked)
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Step 6 – Refresh your browser.
Once you have added the text widget and content, visit your site and refresh your browser. If all links have been entered correctly, then the clickable support button will display in your sidebar menu …
(Clickable support button widget on sidebar)
The screenshot above shows the support button in the sidebar area of a newly-installed WordPress site.
Step 7 – Test your widget.
The final step is to make sure that your destination URL works. Test your button to make sure that visitors will go to your support page when clicking the graphic image. If you are taken to your support page, then everything has been set up correctly …
(Test your clickable button)
Useful Tips:
If you would like a new browser window to open up when visitors click on the support button (so they don’t leave the page they’re in), then change the button code from this:
To this (i.e. add the section that says: target=”_blank” in the html code):
When choosing images to add to your sidebar navigation section, make sure that the width of your image does not exceed the width of your sidebar column, especially if you are using a non-responsive WordPress theme. Note that some themes may 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 image, then you may have to either adjust the size of your images, or the width of your sidebar column to make images display correctly on your theme.
(Adjust column width or reduce image size)
Extra Tips:
- If you don’t want to center your button in your sidebar, delete the <center> and </center> tags from the beginning and end of the code. The image will then align to the left.
- Link your support button to any URL you want (e.g. to an external link, contact form, FAQ page, etc.) and change this anytime by editing the content in the text widget.
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This is the end of section two of this tutorial series.
Click here to continue reading:
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