Tag: Widgets WP

In Part 1 of this step-by-step tutorial, we cover the basics of how to use WordPress widgets.

In this section you are going to begin configuring a number of WordPress sidebar widgets.

Configuring Sidebar Widgets

By default, your site comes with several preinstalled 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 site’s pages, filter posts by categories, text or HTML banners, adding tag clouds, etc.

(By default, your site comes with a number of built-in widgets)

Setting Up Sidebar Widgets: Step-By-Step Tutorial

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

• Adding a clickable Help graphic linking visitors to your contact page.
• Add a Categories section with a drop down menu.
• Adding a Recent Posts section.
• Adding a list of your site’s Pages.
• Display important Links on your sidebar navigation menu.
• Adding an RSS Feed section.
• Adding a list of clickable tags with a Tag Cloud.
• Add and configure an Archives section to your sidebar.

To access the Widgets section go to Appearance > Widgets …

(Widgets Menu)

This brings you to the Widgets screen into your browser window …

(Widgets Panel)

Let’s configure text widgets …

Adding 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)

Text widgets let you insert just about anything you want into your sidebar or other widget sections, such as single lines or paragraphs of text, maps and directions, news and updates and more to your site … simply type in text or insert HTML into the widget content area. You can also give the widget a title. Remember to save your settings …

(Text widgets are really versatile!)

Example: Add A Support Button To Your Sidebar Navigation Section Using A Text Widget

For this example, we’ll set up a contact button on your sidebar menu 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 graphic image that you will want visitors to 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.

Upload the image to the images folder in your server and note the address of your image location.

For example …

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

You will use this information in Step 3.

In order for someone to go 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 link your button graphic to this URL in Step 3 …

Step 2 – Create the contact page.

Create a contact page and note down its URL …

Step 3 – Compose the 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, you just need to create the instructions linking your graphic image to the destination URL.

Your instructions can be written a simple text editor 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 code that you need to replace with the 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 figuring out basic HTML code, see this tutorial:

• A Beginner’s Guide To HTML Tags For WordPress Users

Next, go back into your Widgets screen …

(Widgets Screen)

Step 4 – Add a Text widget.

Add a Text widget to your sidebar where you want your support button to display.

In the Available Widgets area, select a Text widget …

(WordPress text widget)

Drag your Text widget to the Active Widgets section and release the widget at the 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 your text widget content area and click the save button …

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 Save when done …

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

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

If 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: this is not necessary if you paste in formatted HTML content like we’re using in the example for this tutorial).

Here is some text added to a Text widget with Automatically add paragraphs box not selected …

(Automatically add paragraphs box unchecked)

Here is some text with Automatically add paragraphs box selected …

(Automatically add paragraphs option selected)

***

Step 6 – Refresh the web browser.

Once you have added the widget and formatted content, visit your site and refresh the web browser. If you have entered all of the links correctly, then the support button should display in your sidebar menu …

(Clickable button widget on blog sidebar)

The above screenshot shows a clickable button in the sidebar of a newly-installed WordPress site.

Step 7 – Test your widget.

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

(Test the clickable button to ensure you’ve set everything up correctly)

Text Widgets – Useful Tips:

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

To this (i.e. include the section containing target=”_blank” in the text widget code):

When choosing images to add to your sidebar 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 can display different column widths depending on their templates and layout. Some sidebars may be too wide or too narrow. If your theme’s sidebar width is narrower than the width of your graphic image, then you may need to either adjust the size of your images, or the column width to make images display correctly on your sidebar area.

(Adjust column width or reduce image size)

Extra Tips:

• If you don’t want the button image to be centered inside the sidebar, delete the <center> and </center> tags from the beginning and end of the code. The image will then be left-aligned.
• Link your contact button to any URL you like (e.g. to an external site, helpdesk, support forum, etc.) and change this anytime by replacing the code inside your text widget.

***

This is the end of section 2 of this tutorial series.

Click here to read Part 3:

• Adding And Configuring WordPress Widgets In The Sidebar Section – Part 3

***