Tag: Widgets

In Part One of this tutorial series, we cover the basics of how to use widgets in WordPress.

In this section you are going to configure various WordPress widgets.

Configuring Sidebar Widgets

By default, your site comes with several built-in widgets that can be used out of the box with little to no configuration needed, such as widgets that let you display external links, filter posts by categories, RSS feed content, add a search box, etc.

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

Configuring Widgets On Your Sidebar: Step-By-Step Tutorial

In this tutorial series, we are going to add, configure and reorder s number of WordPress widgets to display in your site’s sidebar, including:

• Add a Support Contact button linking visitors to the help page.
• Add a Categories section with a drop down menu.
• Add a Recent Posts section.
• Add a list of the site’s most important Pages.
• Display Links on the sidebar.
• Add an RSS Feed section.
• Add tags to your sidebar area using a Tag Cloud.
• Configure how Archived Posts display on your sidebar.

To access the Widgets area log into the dashboard and go to Appearance > Widgets …

(WordPress Widgets Menu)

This loads the Widgets panel in your web browser …

(Widgets Area)

Let’s get started …

Add A Text Widget To Your Sidebar Menu

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)

A text widget can be used to add comments, image links, scripts and more to your site … just type in text or add HTML into the widget content area. You can also add an optional title in the Title field. Remember to save your settings when done …

(Text widgets are really versatile!)

Example: Add A Clickable Support Button To The Sidebar Section Using A Text Widget

For this example, we’ll set up a clickable contact button on the sidebar area 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 visitors can click on …

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

Step 1 – Upload your image.

To display the clickable button image on your site, the graphic image must be uploaded to your server. Upload the image to the images folder in your server and note down the URL pointing to your image location.

For example …

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

You will need this information in Step 3.

For someone to be taken 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 the button image to this URL in Step 3 …

Step 2 – Add your contact page.

Create a contact page on your site and note its URL …

Step 3 – Compose your text widget code.

Don’t worry … this sounds a lot more technical than it is. Basically, you just need to create the instructions for your clickable button.

Your instructions can be typed into a simple text editor and should 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 above with the URL of your image location.

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

Replace the above URLs and then copy all of your text file content to your clipboard when finished.

If you need help understanding basic HTML code, see this tutorial:

• A Basic Guide To Formatting Content Using HTML

Now, go back into your Widgets panel …

(Widgets Panel)

Step 4 – Add a Text widget.

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

In the Available Widgets area, find a Text widget …

(Text widget)

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

(Dragging and dropping your Text widget)

Step 5 – Configure your widget.

Click on the widget title bar to configure the widget settings. Paste the code with the URLs to your contact page and graphic button into the text widget content area and click the save button …

Add a heading to the widget if you want (e.g. “Need Help?”, “Support”, etc.) and paste the code with the correct destination links into the Content area, then click Save when done …

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

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

If you’re adding text with no formatting tags like paragraph breaks, 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 doing in this tutorial).

Here is some text with Automatically add paragraphs option not selected …

(Automatically add paragraphs box unchecked)

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

(Automatically add paragraphs option ticked)

***

Step 6 – Refresh the browser.

Once you have added your text widget and code content, go to the front-end of your site and refresh your browser. If you have entered all of the links correctly, then your clickable support button will display at the top of the site’s sidebar menu …

(Clickable button widget on sidebar)

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

Step 7 – Test the button.

The final step is to ensure that the links work. Test your button to make sure that your visitors will go to the support page when clicking the button. You should be taken to your support page …

(Test the text widget)

Tips:

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

To this (i.e. include the part that says: target=”_blank” in the text widget code):

When choosing images to add to 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 explained, some themes can display elements differently depending on their templates and layout. Some sidebars may be wider or narrower. If the sidebar of your theme is narrower than the width of your graphic images, then you may have to either adjust the graphic size, or the width of your sidebar column to make images display correctly on your sidebar area.

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

Additional Tips:

• If you don’t want to center your button image inside 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 the help button to any destination you want (e.g. to an external site, contact form, support forum, etc.) and change this anytime by editing the content in the text widget.

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This is the end of section 2 of this tutorial.

To continue, click here:

• Using WordPress Widgets – Part 3

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