Tag: Widgets

In Part One of this tutorial series, we cover the basics of using WordPress widgets.

In this tutorial you are going to learn how to configure several widgets in WordPress.

Sidebar Widget Configuration

In a default WordPress installation, your site comes with a number of preinstalled active widgets, such as widgets that let you display external links, filter posts by categories, news items, adding a search box, etc.

(In a default WordPress installation, your site comes with several built-in widgets)

Adding Frequently-Used Sidebar Widgets To WordPress: Tutorial

In this step-by-step tutorial series, we will add, configure and reorder s number of WordPress widgets, including:

• Add a clickable Support image linking to the contact details page.
• Add a Categories section with a drop down menu.
• Add a Recent Posts section to display your latest posts.
• Add a list of your site’s main Pages.
• Display useful Links on the sidebar.
• Adding an RSS Feed section.
• Add tag links with a Tag Cloud.
• Adding and configuring an Archives section to your sidebar.

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

(Widgets Menu)

This loads the Widgets section in your browser window …

(Widgets Section)

Let’s start to configure some widgets …

Text Widgets

Text widgets are incredibly versatile …

(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 can be used to add email and contact information, images, forms and more to your site … just by typing in text or pasting HTML into the content area. You can also give the widget a title. Remember to save your settings when done …

(Text widgets are really versatile!)

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

For this example, we’ll set up a clickable support button on the sidebar menu that will take 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 button to display at the top of your sidebar menu like in the example shown below …

Step 1 – Upload your image.

To display an image on your site, the image must be uploaded to your server. Upload the image to the images folder in your server and note the path to your image location.

For example …

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

This information will be required in Step 3.

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

Step 2 – Add the support page.

Create a contact page and note 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 for your clickable button.

Your code can be composed in a simple 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 code that you need to replace with the actual contact details …

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, see this tutorial:

• A Basic Guide To HTML

Next, go back to your Widgets section …

(Widgets Screen)

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, select the Text widget …

(Text widget)

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

(Dragging and dropping your Text widget)

Step 5 – Configure the widget.

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

Add a heading to your widget if you want (e.g. “Need Help?”, “Support”, etc.) and paste the code with the correct destination URLs into the text area, then click the save button …

Note: Make sure to check your contact page and image links before pasting scripts into the Text Widget, or the 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 an HTML paragraph code (note: this is not necessary if you’re typing in formatted content like we’re using in the example for this tutorial).

Here is some text with Automatically add paragraphs box unchecked …

(Automatically add paragraphs option not checked)

Here is some text with Automatically add paragraphs option selected …

(Automatically add paragraphs box ticked)

***

Step 6 – Refresh your web browser.

After adding your widget and formatted content, visit the front end of your site and refresh your web browser. If you have entered all of the links correctly, then the clickable support button should display at the top of your site’s sidebar menu …

(Clickable button widget on sidebar)

The screenshot above shows ’click for help’ button added to a brand new WordPress site.

Step 7 – Test the button.

The last step is to make sure that your destination URL works. Test the 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 your text widget has been set up correctly …

(Test your text widget)

Useful Tips:

If you want the 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. insert the section that says: target=”_blank” in your text widget code):

When choosing images to add to your sidebar navigation menu, make sure that the width of the image does not exceed the width of the 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 too wide or too narrow. If your theme’s sidebar is narrower than the width of your graphic image, then you may have to either adjust the image size, or the column width to make elements display correctly on your sidebar.

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

More 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 HTML code. The image will then be left-aligned.
• Link the help button to any destination you want (e.g. to an external link, contact form, FAQ page, etc.) and change this anytime by editing the code in the text widget.

***

This is the end of section two of this tutorial series about how to use WordPress widgets.

Click here to keep reading:

• Adding Widgets To Your WordPress Sidebar – Part Three

***