In Part One of this tutorial, we explained how to use WordPress widgets and in Part Two, we explained how to configure a text widget.
In this tutorial you will learn how to configure other frequently-used widgets.
Add A Post Categories Widget
Now that you have configure a text widget containing a support button, let’s configure a widget for your Post Categories.
By default, the Categories widget displays on the sidebar. Place this widget wherever you want your categories to display by clicking and dragging it in your sidebar area …
(WordPress Post Categories widget)
Before adding a Categories widget to your sidebar navigation section, we recommend setting up your Post Categoriesfeature first …
(Post Categories)
Note: We are currently putting together tutorials on how to set up WordPress categories.
Let’s configure your categories widget settings as shown below:
- In Title: type something that will make sense to your visitors, like “Choose A Topic…” (1)
- If you have too many categories, check Display as dropdown (this significantly reduces the size of the content by displaying all categories in a drop-down menu). If you plan to publish posts under a few categories only, then leave the Display as dropdown box unticked. (2)
- You can leave the other options unchecked, or see the additional notes on configuring this widget below.
- Click Save to update your settings …
(Configuring a Categories widget)
Load the site in your web browser or refresh the page to see how your Categories widget will look to visitors …
(WordPress Categories widget added to sidebar)
Tips:
- Change the default Uncategorized post category to something more meaningful.
- If you use nested categories on your site, you may want to check the Show hierarchy box, otherwise leave this box unticked.
- To display the number of posts published in each category, enable the Show post counts check box …
(Category widget options – Post Count Enabled vs Post Count Disabled)
Add A Recent Posts Widget To Your Sidebar
The Recent Posts widget is normally added to your sidebar by default. All you need to do is configure this widget.
Click on the Recent Posts title bar to configure its settings …
(Recent Posts widget)
There is not much to configure in this widget. You can add a title if you want, select the number of posts to display and opt to display post dates. If you’re happy to use the default setting for Number of posts to show, then just leave the widget as is, otherwise enter a number of posts to show and click Save …
(Recent Posts WordPress widget settings)
Your most recent posts will display on the sidebar section …
(Recent Posts widget on sidebar navigation section)
Creating and editing a WordPress Post is explained here: How To Create A Post In WordPress
Add Links To Your Site’s Main Pages
Next, let’s add a widget to your sidebar section for listing pages.
Find a Pages widget in the Available Widgets section …
(Pages Widget)
Drag the Pages widget to your active widget section …
(Adding a Pages widget to the sidebar menu)
The Pages widget lets you configure the following options:
- Title: Add a title to the widget (e.g. “Useful Sections“) (1)
- Sort by: Sort how your pages display: by title (i.e. alphabetically), by page order, or page ID. (2)
- Exclude: Hide pages on the sidebar (3) …
(Pages Widget settings)
By default, pages will be listed by title in alphabetical order. If you want to display pages using one of the other options, then select a different method from the Sort by: drop-down menu …
(WordPress Pages Widget settings – sorting options)
To exclude pages from displaying in your sidebar, simply type the Page Ids for all the pages you want excluded separated by commas into the Exclude field of the Pages widget …
(WordPress Pages Widget settings – excluding pages by ID)
For a step-by-step tutorial on how to find a WordPress page ID, go here: How To Locate The ID Of WordPress Pages And Posts
Click the Save button when finished and click Close at the bottom of the widget box to minimize your widget.
Links to your blog’s main pages will now appear on the sidebar …
(Pages Widget on sidebar)
Tip: You can add multiple Pages widgets to the sidebar menu. This is useful if you need to display different page groups on the sidebar (e.g. “Products”, “Legal Pages” etc.)
Display Links On Your Blog Sidebar
Next, we’ll add a widget that will display external links on your WordPress sidebar.
Before adding a Links widget to your sidebar, you should first configure the Links feature inside your dashboard …
(WordPress Links section)
Note: Configuring WordPress Links will be covered in separate tutorials.
To add the widget, find a Links widget in the Available Widgets section …
(WordPress Links Widget)
Drag the Links widget to your sidebar area …
(Making Links Widget active)
The widget offers a number of configurable options, including the ability to specify what information to show about your links and how many links you want to display on your sidebar section …
(WordPress Links Widget Settings)
You can add as many separate ‘Link Widgets’ to the sidebar as you want. As you will see in a moment, this lets you create and display specific lists of links on your site …
(Add Multiple Links Widgets To Your Sidebar Section)
You can sort links by Link title, Link rating, Link ID, or display links in Random order …
(WordPress Links widget: ‘Sort by:’ drop-down menu)
You can also create and display a list of items for a specific category, by selecting a link category from the ‘Select Link Category’ drop-down menu …
( Links widget: ‘Select Link Category’ drop-down menu)
When you have finished configuring your Links Widget, click the Save button. Your widget will become immediately visible on the sidebar …
(Links added to WordPress sidebar section)
As the above example shows, you can display specific external links to your site visitors (e.g. a list for a specific link category only), and add multiple lists of links to your sidebar menu.
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This is the end of part three of this tutorial.
Click here to continue:
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"This is an awesome training series. I have a pretty good understanding of WordPress already, but this is helping me to move somewhere from intermediate to advanced user!" - Kim Lednum