Sidebar widgets allow you to arrange and structure different sections of the sidebars in your Wordpress website or blog. They can be allocated to different sidebars and positioned in order wherever you want them in a sidebar.
Wordpress provides several different widget types that have predetermined functionality. In other words, the side bar widgets provided are designed to perform different tasks and will display different information in your sidebars. Just select the ones you need and configure them the way you want.
To get access to the widgets for your Wordpress site you need to login in as admin and go to the Appearance menu option and then select Widgets.
Note that the theme you are using must be widget-ready, but you will find that most themes today are.
Themes can have one or two sidebars so make sure you select the right sidebar before adding and configuring your widgets.
SideBar Widgets in Wordpress
Here are some brief descriptions of all the widgets that are provided and information on how they can be configured:
Recent Posts Widget
This displays a list of the most recent Posts in your blog with links to those posts.
You can enter a Title as a heading above the list of posts and you can also indicate the Number of Posts to be displayed (1- 15).
Recent Comments Widget
This displays a list of the most recent Comments that you have approved on posts in your blog with links to those comments.
You can enter a Title as a heading above the list of comments and you can also determine the Number of Comments to be displayed (1- 15).
Pages Widget
This displays a list of the Pages on your website with links to those pages.
You can enter a Title as a heading above the list of pages and you can also indicate how the page list displayed should be sorted.
Categories Widget
This displays a list of all your post Categories and includes a link to all the posts in that category.
You can enter a Title as a heading above the list of categories and select to show the categories as a drop down list, show the number of posts for each category and/or show the category parent-child hierarchies.
Tag Cloud Widget
This displays list of your blog post’s most used Tags arranged in a cloud formation.
You can enter a Title as a heading above the tag cloud.
Archives Widget
This displays a list of the Months for which you have posts in your blog linked to the posts for each month.
You can enter a Title as a heading above the list of months and select to show the Number of Posts for each month and you can also display archives as a drop down list.
Links Widget
This displays a list of the Links you have setup via the Links option in the admin dashboard and they are displayed separated by category.
There are no configuration options for the links widget.
Calendar Widget
This displays the current month’s a Calendar. Dates that have posts are highlighted and linked to the posts for that day.
You can enter a Title as a heading above the calendar.
Meta Data Widget
This displays a list of shortcut links to Wordpress meta items such as Site Admin Login, Post Entries RSS, Post Comments RSS and also WordPress.org.
You can enter a Title as a heading above the meta list.
Search Widget
This displays a Search box in a sidebar which can be used to enter text string to search for in your blog.
There are no configuration options for the search widget.
RSS Widgets
These display RSS Feeds that you select and can be used more than once.
You can enter a Title as a heading above the RSS feed and you must enter the URL of the RSS feed you want displayed and the Number of Items from the feed to be displayed.
Text Widgets
These are used to enter HTML code, including links, images and videos, Javascript or just plain text.
A Text Widget is an extremely useful widget as you can just do so much with them and you will soon find that you will probably use them more than any other widget.
You can enter a Title as a heading for any text widget and enter any valid code into the text area, including of course plain text without any code at all.
Widgets As Displayed In The Admin Dashboard:
Text Widget In Edit Mode:
So go add some widgets!
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