Creating, Maintaining and Optimizing Widgets
Widgets are a great way to add customization to your website without having to manually build or design new elements. They have a huge range of functionality, from calendars of latest articles by your team, to galleries of the most recent images your company has shared, to a thread of latest comments on your blog.
Let’s explore the widgets that are just a click away and how to add and edit them.
NOTE: This is a continuation of our tutorial series on customizing navigation and sidebars on your website. We previously covered creating Panels, which allows you to define different structures for different pages and Menus, which is list of navigation links.
What are Widgets?
Widgets are predefined blocks that can be added to any Panel (think: header, footer or sidebars.) These codeless blocks create a simple and easy way for you to control the design and content of your site.
Widget Placement
On Lunteer, widgets are placed within Panels. Panels are different layouts for the outer sections of your website, header, footer, and sidebars. Find out more about Panels here.
The Widget Page
You can make any and all changes to your widgets via the left-hand column. Go to Appearance and then Widgets.
The menu page has 3 major sections
- Available Widgets – All the widgets you can add to your Panels.
- Available Panels – Although not labeled, the area on your right displays the panels available into which you can drag & drop a widget.
- Inactive Widgets – If you created a widget but don’t want it live on your site, it gets stored in Inactive Widgets in case you want to use it in the future.
Adding a Widget to a Panel
There are 2 ways to add a widget to a Panel area; drag & drop or Click to Add.
Once you add a widget to your Panel, there is an optional Title Field to give a title to the widget. Depending on the widget, you might see additional setting options there too.
Saving, Deleting and Closing Widgets
At the bottom of every widget there are 3 standard options:
- Delete – Delete the Widget
- Done – Close the widget
- Save – Save the widget, this includes saving changes. Always remember to click Save.
Types of Widgets
There are so many types of widgets available, we can’t list them all. But here are some of the most used widgets to get you started:
- Form Widget – Add a form to you panel. Once you add it to your panel, you will have the option of selecting which form to use.
- Categories – Automatically add your categories to your panel. In addition to the title field you have the options of displaying the list as a dropdown, showing the articles counts, or showing the categorization hierarchy
- List Posts – Add articles from the same category in the panel. You can select the category, number of articles, and the display layout. There are also additional advance options.
- Social Accounts – Setup and add social media links to you profile. Once you add the panel, you’ll be prompted to select which social accounts to add.
- Text – Add text to a panel. For example, add copyright information to your footer.
- Navigation Menu – Add a menu to a panel. Find out more about Menus.
Conclusion
Customizing your site with just a few clicks is our mantra. We want it to be easy and fun to create and manage your company website and we can’t rave enough about widgets. They help give your site unique flair and character. And more importantly – they give your users all the right content on every page. Get widgeting!