How To Use And Configure WordPress Widgets – Part 4

Learn how to add and configure various useful WordPress widgets on your sidebar and how to create custom sidebar widgets …

How To Add And Configure WordPress Widgets In Your WebsiteIn Part 1 of this tutorial, we explained how to use widgets in WordPress and in Part Two, we explained how to configure text widgets.

In Part 3, we began configuring a number of default widgets in WordPress.

In this final section, we show you how to complete this tutorial by learning how to configure a few more useful WordPress widgets.

Useful Info

In WordPress v. 4.8, WordPress introduced new media widgets covering images, audio, and video, and an updated text widget that supports visual editing

WordPress 4.8 - WordPress Widget Updates

(WordPress 4.8 introduced new widget updates)

These widgets let you add content from your media library and media stored in other servers or storage locations (e.g. Google Drive, Dropbox, Amazon S3, etc.).

Let’s go through how to configure and use each of these widgets:

Rich Text Widget

From version 4.8 onward, WordPress has added native rich-text editing capabilities to text widgets …

Rich Text Widget

(Rich Text Widget)

This lets you format text, create lists, add emphasis, and insert links into your sidebar text quickly and easily …

(Format text easily with the new text widget)

To learn more about using text widgets in WordPress, see the tutorial below:

WordPress Image Widget

The WordPress Image Widget lets you add an image to your sidebar from your Media Library or an external storage location.

To add an image, drag an image widget to your active widgets area …

Image Widget

(Image Widget)

Click on ‘Add Image’ …

Let's add an image!

(Let’s add an image!)

Select an image from the Image Library, check or add image details (e.g. Caption, Alt text, Description, etc.) if desired and click the ‘Add to Widget’ button …

Select an image

(Select an image)

The image will automatically load into the widget area …

Image added to widget

(Image added to widget)

Add a Title to your image if you want, or leave the ‘Title:’ field blank and click ‘Save’ …

Save your image

(Save your image)

Preview your website and you should see the image displayed where you have placed your image widget …

Image added to website using image widget

(Image added to website using WordPress image widget)

If you want to link your image to an URL, go back to your image widget and click on ‘Edit Image’ …

Image Widget - Edit Image

(Image Widget – Edit Image)

Add a URL in the ‘Image Details’ > ‘Display Settings’ > ‘Link To’ screen and click the ‘Update’ button …

Link your image to an URL

(Link your image to an URL)

To add an image stored in an external server or remote location, locate and copy the URL of the image to your clipboard …

Copy image URL to your clipboard

(Copy image URL to your clipboard)

Go back to your image widget and click on ‘Replace Image’ …

Image Widget - Replace image

(Image Widget – Replace image)

The Media Library browser opens. Click on ‘Insert from URL’ and paste in the image URL copied to your clipboard, then click on ‘Add to Widget’  …

Add image URL

(Add image URL)

If you have previously added an image title in your widget, remember to replace it if required, then click ‘Save’ …

Save your new image

(Save your new image)

The new image will now display on your sidebar …

New image added using WordPress image widget

(New image added using WordPress image widget)

To learn more about adding images to WordPress, see this tutorial:

WordPress Video Widget

The WordPress Video Widget lets you add audio files to your sidebar from your Media Library, YouTube, Vimeo, or an external storage location.

To add a video to the sidebar, drag a Video widget to your active widgets area …

Drag a Video widget to your sidebar

(Drag a Video widget to your sidebar)

Click the ‘Add Video’ button …

Video widget - Add Video

(Video widget – Add Video)

Select a video from your media library or add a video URL and click the ‘Add to Widget’ button …

Add a video URL

(Add a video URL)

Add a title to the widget if desired and click ‘Save’ …

WordPress Video Widget - Save Button

(WordPress Video Widget – Save Button)

Your video will display on your site where the video widget has been added …

Video added using WordPress video widget

(Video added using WordPress video widget)

To learn more about adding video to WordPress, see this tutorial:

WordPress Audio Widget

The WordPress Audio Widget lets you add audio files like podcasts, music or a personal greeting to your sidebar from your media library or an external storage location.

To add an audio file to your sidebar, drag an audio widget to your active widgets area …

Add an audio widget to your sidebar

(Add an audio widget to your sidebar)

Click the ‘Add Audio’ button…

WordPress Audio Widget - Add Audio button

(WordPress Audio Widget – Add Audio button)

Select an audio file from your media library or insert the URL of an audio file stored in an external location …

Select your audio file

(Select your audio file)

Add a title to your widget if desired and click the ‘Save’ button …

Save the audio file on your audio widget

(Save the audio file on your audio widget)

Your site will now display an audio file to visitors where you have placed the audio widget …

Audio file added to your site using the WordPress Audio Widget

(Audio file added to your site using the WordPress Audio Widget)

To learn more about adding audios to WordPress, see this tutorial:

Adding A Newsfeed To The Sidebar Area

Let’s now add An RSS widget to the sidebar area.

To add the widget, select an RSS widget in the Available Widgets section and drag it to your sidebar area …

WordPress RSS Widget

(WordPress RSS Widget)

Enter the following information into the widget settings:

  1. RSS feed URL: Enter the URL of your RSS feed here.
  2. Feed Title: If you would like to add a widget title, type it here.
  3. Items to display: Choose the number of RSS feed items you want to display in your sidebar from the drop-down menu.
  4. Display item content: Tick this box if you want to display the RSS feed content.
  5. Display item author: Check this box if you would like to show the item item author.
  6. Display item date: Check this box if you want to display the feed item item date.

RSS Widget settings

(WordPress RSS Widget settings)

Experiment with different settings to find the combination that best works for you.

The example below shows the RSS Feed widget configured as per the settings shown above …

WordPress RSS Widget on blog sidebar

(WordPress RSS Widget on sidebar)

The screenshot below shows a published RSS widget configured with other options selected …

WordPress RSS Widget settings

(RSS Widget settings)

To learn more about using RSS feeds in WordPress, see this tutorial:

Adding A Tag Cloud To Your Sidebar Navigation Area

Let’s now add a widget to display tags on the sidebar.

Important

Tags displayed in your widget are listed in the Tags screen …

WordPress Tags screen

(WordPress Tags area)

To add the widget, select a Tag Cloud widget in the Available Widgets section and drag it to the active area …

Tag Cloud Widget

(Tag Cloud Widget)

There is really very little to configure. You can add a title, and choose whether to display items in the tag cloud using Tags or Categories. Click Save when finished …

WordPress Tag Cloud Widget settings

(Tag Cloud Widget settings)

Your Tag cloud will now display on the sidebar …

Tag Cloud widget set to display WordPress tags

(Tag Cloud widget displaying tags)

The screenshot below shows the Tag Cloud widget configured to display Categories instead of Tags

Tag Cloud widget set to display categories

(Tag Cloud widget set to display WordPress categories)

To learn more about using post tags in WordPress, see this tutorial:

How To Configure Your Archives Section In The Sidebar Navigation Menu

To complete this tutorial series, we’ll configure the default Archives Widget, which is a frequently-used widget.

As you continue publishing new posts in WordPress, your older posts begin to move further away from public view. Your posts are still there, it’s just not as visible.

The Archives Widget lets blog visitors view less visible posts …

WordPress Archives Widget

(WordPress Archives Widget)

There’s very little to set up here. You can add a widget title, and choose whether to display items in the sidebar widget in a dropdown menu, and show the number of posts published each month . Click Save when finished …

WordPress Archives Widget settings

(Archives Widget settings)

The screenshot below shows the Archives widget set up to display posts as a dropdown menu with post counts checkbox enabled …

WordPress Archives widget displayed on blog sidebar

(Archives Widget added to blog sidebar)

Now that you know how to configure most of the frequently-used widgets on your WordPress site, let’s explore some other areas of WordPress widgets.

Widgets – Useful Tips

Here are some additional things to know about using WordPress widgets:

Add ‘Visibility’ Function To Widgets

Installing the Jetpack plugin not only adds many new widgets to your widgets area …

Jetpack Widgets

(Jetpack Widgets)

It also adds a useful ‘Visibility’ function to all WordPress widgets …

Jetpack adds 'Visibility' to all widgets

(Jetpack adds ‘Visibility’ to all widgets)

This function lets you specify whether to display or hide widgets from your sidebar based on conditions you set for a particular category, author, user. role, tag, date, or page …

Set conditions to show or hide widgets

(Set conditions to show or hide widgets)

This is a really useful function to have.

For example, you can:

  • Display a widget only on your home page or only on posts published under certain categories, tags, authors, dates, etc.
  • Configure widgets to display specific or time-sensitive announcements based on a post’s category, date, etc.
  • Configure widgets to display targeted ad banners based on a post’s category or tag.
  • Hide widgets from appearing on certain posts or pages to prevent users from being distracted (e.g. remove widgets with ads from your sales pages).
  • And more!

To learn more about using the Jetpack plugin, go here:

Overriding Default Widgets

If you see widgets showing up on your blog sidebar that aren’t showing up under your active sidebar in the Appearance > Widgets section, it’s because with some themes, until you add widgets to the sidebar navigation menu, the theme will display its own default set of widgets.

For example, this site displays a couple of widgets in the sidebar area …

How To Override Default Sidebar Widgets

If you look inside the Widgets area, however, no widgets have actually been added to the available widget areas …

How To Override Default WordPress Sidebar Widgets

The above theme may be using default widgets.

Once you add one or more widgets to an active widget area, the placeholder widgets will disappear and be replaced with your newly-added widgets instead.

Note: If you don’t want anything to appear in your sidebar section, either use a theme page template without a widgets layout or just add a blank Text widget to your sidebar.

Just add a blank text widget to a widget area …

Override Default Sidebar Widgets

And default widgets will not display in your sidebar/footer section …

Override Default WordPress Sidebar Widgets

Accessibility Mode

As we have explained in an earlier example, with WordPress you can easily reorder how information is displayed in areas of your website or blog, like sidebars, footers and navigation menus with only a few clicks of your mouse, using drag-and-drop technology …

Rearranging sidebar layout with widgets can help to improve visitor experience

(Reorganize sidebar elements with widgets to improve your site’s visitor experience)

In the screenshot above, for example, you can see that we have easily change the layout in the site’s sidebar area by switching the search and testimonial sections. This is easily done by simply dragging and dropping the widget elements into different positions inside the sidebar widget area.

Rearranging sidebar layout using widgets can help to improve visitor experience.

If, however, you find that you are unable to drag & drop widgets around (e.g. using a mobile device that doesn’t support dragging-and-dropping), you can still work with widgets if you enable Accessibility Mode.

How To Enable Accessibility Mode For WordPress Widgets

Enabling Accessibility Mode, via the Screen Options, lets you use Add and Edit buttons instead of using drag-and-drop.

To enable Accessibility Mode, log into your admin and navigate to Appearance > Widgets

Widgets Menu

(Widgets Menu)

Select Screen Options on the top right hand corner of your screen …

WordPress Widgets - Screen Options

(Widgets – Screen Options)

Click on the Enable accessibility mode link …

Turn on accessibility mode

(Enable accessibility mode)

Once accessibility mode has been enabled, the widgets in the Available Widgets and the Active Widgets sections, widgets will display an Add and Edit link respectively …

Enable Accessibility Mode For WordPress Widgets

If you click on a Widget’s Add link in the Available Widgets section …

Enabling Accessibility Mode For Widgets

A screen will display the selected widget with options for customizing its settings, selecting the widget location, with drop-down menus for specifying the position of the widget in your selected area (e.g. position “1”, “3”, “5”, etc.) …

Enabling Accessibility Mode For Widgets

Click Save Widget to add the widget to your Active Widgets section, or Cancel to return to your previous screen …

How To Enable Accessibility Mode For WordPress Widgets

Click on the Edit link of an active widget …

How To Enable Widget Accessibility Mode

A screen displays your selected widget with options for changing the widget’s settings.

Click Save Widget to return to the Active Widgets screen, or click the Delete button to delete the widget from the Active Widgets section …

How To Enable Accessibility Mode For Widgets

Click on Disable accessibility mode in the Screen Options section to restore the drag-and-drop functionality to your Widgets …

Turn off accessibility mode

(Turn off accessibility mode)

How To Create Your Own Sidebar Widgets

Most widgets will either be installed by default when you create a new WordPress site, or be automatically added to your Available Widgets section when you install a new plugin on your site.

If you want to create a sidebar widget, then here is an easy way:

First, create a new Post and type in the content that you want to display in your sidebar navigation menu…

How To Create Your Own Custom Sidebar Widgets

Ensure that any images you use are resized to fit the maximum width of the sidebar menu. Also, keep in mind that you don’t have a lot of room to add content on your sidebar, so try and keep your information concise.

Also, don’t worry about saving your Post – all we want is the code of the content to be pasted into a widget.

After writing your content, click on the Text tab …

How To Create Your Own Sidebar Widgets

Select and copy everything to your clipboard…

How To Create Your Own Sidebar Widgets

Next, go into your Widgets Area.

Add a new Text widget to your sidebar, paste the content from your clipboard into the content field and click Save

How To Create Your Own Sidebar Widgets

Your new custom widget will be added to your sidebar area…

Creating Your Own Custom Sidebar Widgets

(Create your own sidebar widgets)

Congratulations! Now you know how to use and configure your sidebar widgets.

Adding And Configuring Widgets On The Sidebar Menu

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