Tag: Widgets

In Part 1 of this tutorial, we cover the basics of using widgets in WordPress.

In this section you are going to learn how to begin configuring various sidebar widgets in WordPress.

Widget Configuration

In a default WordPress installation, your site comes with a number of preinstalled widgets that can be used out of the box with minimal to no configuration required, such as widgets that let you display links to your pages, filter posts by categories, news items, add tag clouds, etc.

(In a default WordPress installation, your site comes with a number of active widgets)

Adding Commonly-Used Sidebar Widgets To WordPress: Tutorial

In this step-by-step tutorial series, we will add, configure and reorder a number of frequently-used widgets, including:

• Adding a Support image linking visitors to your contact page.
• Adding a Categories section with a drop down menu.
• Adding a Recent Posts section.
• Adding a list of the site’s Pages.
• Display useful Links on your sidebar.
• Add an RSS Feed section.
• Adding a Tag Cloud.
• Configure how your Archived Posts display on your sidebar.

The Widgets panel is located inside the WP dashboard by going to Appearance > Widgets …

(Widgets Menu)

This brings you to the Widgets area into your web browser …

(Widgets Section)

Let’s begin to configure your sidebar widgets …

Adding Text Widgets To The Blog Sidebar

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 email and contact information, ads, reviews and more to your site … simply type in text or paste HTML into the widget content area. You can also give the widget a title. Remember to save your settings when done …

(Text widgets are really versatile!)

Example: Using A Text Widget To Add A Support Button To The Sidebar Navigation Menu

For this example, let’s set up a support button on your sidebar area 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 your your visitors to click on …

We’ll set up the clickable Help button to display at the top of your sidebar like in the example shown below …

Step 1 – Upload your image.

To display the clickable image on your site, the graphic image must be uploaded to your server. Upload the button graphic to a folder on your server and write down the path to your image location.

E.g. …

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

This information will be used in Step 3.

In order for visitors to go to your contact page when they click on the support button, you will need to 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 – Add the support page.

Create a contact page and note down its URL …

Step 3 – Create your text widget code.

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 for your clickable button.

Your instructions can be typed in a simple text file and should 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 with the URL of your image location.

The screenshot below shows which sections of the above sample code you will need to replace with the actual contact page and image URLs …

Replace the above URLs and then copy all of the above code to your clipboard when finished.

If you need help figuring out basic HTML code, refer to this tutorial:

• A Useful Guide To HTML Formatting Tags For WordPress Users

Next, go back to your Widgets section …

(Widgets Area)

Step 4 – Add a Text widget.

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

In the Available Widgets area, select the Text widget …

(Text widget)

Drag the Text widget to your Active Widgets section and release the widget at the very top of the Widget Area …

(Drag-and-drop your Text widget)

Step 5 – Configure the widget settings.

Click on the Text widget title bar to configure the widget options. Paste the code with the URLs 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 all URLs before pasting scripts into the Text Widget, or the clickable button won’t 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 type in code 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 option not ticked)

Here is some text added to a Text widget with Automatically add paragraphs option ticked …

(Automatically add paragraphs option checked)

***

Step 6 – Refresh the web browser.

After adding your text widget and code, go to the front-end of your site and refresh your browser. If all links have been entered correctly, then the support button will display at the top of your sidebar menu …

(Clickable button widget on blog sidebar)

The screenshot above shows the support contact button in the sidebar of a brand new WordPress site.

Step 7 – Test your button.

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

(Test the clickable button)

Tips:

If you want the support page to open in a new window when visitors click on the help (so they don’t leave the page they’re on), then change the button code from this:

To this (i.e. insert the part containing target=”_blank” in your code):

When choosing images for your sidebar area, make sure that the width of your image does not exceed the width of the sidebar column, especially if you are using a non-responsive WordPress theme. As we’ve previously mentioned, some themes may display elements differently depending on their templates and their layout. Some sidebars may be too wide or too narrow. If the sidebar of your theme is narrower than the width of your graphic images, then you may need to either adjust the size of your images, or the width of your sidebar column to make elements display correctly on your sidebar area.

(Make sure the image width does not exceed the width of the sidebar column)

More Tips:

• If you don’t want the image to be centered in your sidebar, delete the <center> and </center> tags from the beginning and end of the HTML code. The image will then be left-aligned.
• You can link your contact button to any URL you want (e.g. to an external link, helpdesk, FAQ page, etc.) and change this anytime by replacing the code in the widget.

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This is the end of section two of this tutorial.

To view Part Three, click this link:

• How To Add WordPress Widgets To Your Sidebar – Part Three

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