WordPress Widgets Kathy E Gill 1 February 2011

What Are Widgets?  A “configurable code snippet" that makes it possible to modify function and appearance

Widgets & WordPress Themes  Not all themes are widget-capable  Themes vary in widget options, location

Single Widget Area

Multiple Widget Areas

Where Are Widgets?  Access the widgets page from the Appearance Menu in your Dashboard.

Default Appearance - Single

Default Appearance - Multi

Monotone: No Widgets Supported

Editing Appearance  Note: once you edit a widget area, the default widgets disappear  Recommendation: before editing, take a screenshot of your theme  Tip: if you don’t want anything to show up in a widget area, try adding a blank text widget.

Adding Widgets  To add a widget, drag from the Available or Inactive Widgets area on the left onto the Sidebar area on the right.  When you see a dashed line appear, you can drop the widget into place. Single widget area; image from WP.com

Multiple Widget Locations

Configuring Widgets  Each widget has configuration options. Click on the triangle on the right side of the widget to configure.  You’ll need to save only if you edit.

Ordering, Deleting Widgets  Change the order of the widgets by dragging and dropping them in the sidebar area.  Delete by dragging to the left or clicking the “delete” link on the configuration box.  Note: design change is immediate – no “save” required

Screencast

Important Widgets (1/5)  Archives Navigation. Provides access to old posts; a key characteristic of blog as a genre  Categories Navigation. Provides access to posts by topic; a key characteristic of blog as a genre

Important Widgets (2/5)  Links As Blogroll, Background. Provides insight into blog content, author; a key characteristic of blog as a genre  Tag Cloud Navigation, Background. Provides access to posts by keyword; requires reasonably large corpus to be useful.

Important Widgets (3/5)  Pages Navigation. Provides access to pages; essential if sidebar is primary navigation.  Category Cloud Navigation, Background. Provides alternative access to posts by category; requires reasonably large corpus to be useful.

Important Widgets (4/5)  Recent Posts Background. Highlights most recent posts; useful when “more” tag not employed.  Recent Comments Background. Highlights most recent comments; requires reasonably large corpus/frequent comments to be meaningful.

Important Widgets (5/5)  Text May be the most important widget; can hold text or HTML but no javascript.  RSS Links Provides access to post and comment RSS feed using orange button. Essential if there is no other RSS subscription link in the design.

Interesting Widgets (1/3)  Twitter Background. Displays tweets by handle.  Flickr Background. Displays photos from Flickr based on an RSS feed.  Delicious Background. Display Delicious links by handle.

Interesting Widgets (2/3)  Box.net Functionality. Share files with your readers.  Meebo Functionality. Enables private IM chat.  SocialVibe Functionality. Support a charity.

Interesting Widgets (3/3)  Blog Subscription Functionality. Enables alert when there are new posts.  SocialVibe Functionality. Support a charity.

Widgets That Require Content  Search Useless unless there is a large corpus.  Top Clicks Useless unless there is a large corpus.  Top Posts and Pages Useless unless there is a large corpus.

WordPress Widgets  List and descriptions at WP.com: opic/widgets-sidebars/ opic/widgets-sidebars/  Even more widgets available for self-hosted WP accounts: ress_Widgets ress_Widgets

For Portfolio Sites  Consider adding links to Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter  You will use Text Box. We’ll do one of these on Thursday.

Widgets Are Not Plug-ins WP.com has no user- configurable plug-ins Widgets = content (more or less) Plug-Ins = functionality (usually are back-end, such as Akismet, statistics or Google analytics, but may provide short-code functionality or easy content sharing)

Credits  Kathy E  Creative Commons: share-and- share alike, non-commercial, attribution