Documentation:WordPress Basics/Widgets for Wordpress
What are widgets?
In the most general sense, a widget is a piece of 'stand-alone' functionality that can be installed on a website by the user, usually without any coding being required by that user.
In WordPress systems such as UBC Blogs, widgets refer to tools or content that you can add, arrange, and remove from the sidebars of a blog. These tools and content can usually be customized by the blog's manager.
Popular widgets include "Search" (which creates a box allowing for full text search of the contents of the blog), "Archives" (providing links to the blog's older entries), "Links" (to manage hyperlinks to other websites), and "Text" (which can be any text or basic HTML, including display of images). You could also establish a "ratings" widget, to display top rated posts or pages.
How are widgets managed?
Widgets are installed, deleted, and configured from the blog administration interface, the screen can be accessed by clicking the "Widgets" link under "Appearance" on the right-hand sidebar.
To install a widget, you "drag" the widget you want (select with mouse, click and hold), and "drop" it on the sidebar (move widget over, release mouse button). You can rearrange the order of the widgets you've selected by dragging, moving and dropping within the sidebar section. (Video here.)
Once widgets have been "installed" you can configure their individual properties by clicking the triangle on the right edge of each widget. Each widget is configured slightly differently depending on what it is supposed to do.
More information
There are a number of videos that illustrate how widgets work for WordPress:
- Widgets overview from WordPress.tv
- Adding a widget to your sidebar from WordPress.tv
- Many more videos on specific widgets from WordPress.tv
- Widgets & Sidebars - from WordPress.com
Note: there are a virtually endless supply of WordPress widgets available on the wider web, and not all of them can be supported by UBC blogs. We need to be selective and careful to ensure the stability and the performance of the system. However, suggestions for plugins and widgets can be submitted to weblogsupport@exchange.ubc.ca
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