WordPress Intermediate: Sidebars and Widgets

Name: WordPress Intermediate: Sidebars and Widgets
Author: Chrissy Rey

Learn how to use sidebars and widgets to create a consistent look for your website

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Course: On-Demand

Hello, my name is Chrissy, and in these lessons, I will show you how to use sidebars and widgets. Let's start off with sidebars. Sidebars are usually referred to as the column that goes down the side of your blog or different pages within your website. And within WordPress, they are usually going to be in what's considered a classic theme. Classic themes and block themes are the two types of themes that you can use in WordPress. And when you hear those names, you might think that classic themes support the classic editor and block themes support the block editor, but that's not actually true. Classic themes can support blocks. You can still use blocks. They're considered classic themes because it's just the older way of creating a theme. If I go to add new, a lot of the themes in this repository are actually going to be classic themes. So for example, the Hello Elementor theme is actually a classic theme, the OceanWP theme, also a classic theme. So it doesn't mean that just because it uses blocks and both of those do use blocks, that it's a block theme. Block themes are actually going to be found under this block themes setting up here at the top. Now in a lot of cases, classic themes allow you to use sidebars. And sidebars are also referred to as widget areas. So again, right now I've got the 2021 theme selected and activated. And you can see here under appearance, I've got a widgets menu. So if I click on widgets, you can see here that I've got a footer widget area. That's what it's referred to as a widget area. Widget areas and sidebars, the two terms are synonymous. They're both used for the same thing, but they're basically places that you can add widgets to your WordPress site. And in the case of the 2021 theme, I've got a footer widget area or sidebar. And then I've got my inactive widget. So this is where I would put any widgets that I'm not currently using. Now different themes have different widget areas or sidebars. So if I go back to my themes, and I switch over to the Neve theme, for example, I'm going to activate that. When I go to my widgets for that, you can see that I've got a sidebar, which actually has the contents from what we're in my footer sidebar. And I've also got a shop sidebar, footer one, footer two, footer three, footer four. And the appearance of the sidebar is going to depend on the theme. Now in the case of this particular theme, the Neve theme, I have to actually add the sidebar to the page for it to show up. I'm not going to show you how to do that right now, but it is something that you have to do for this particular theme. In some themes, the sidebars automatically show up in the footer, the sidebar, or whatever. So again, if I go back to my themes, and I activate the 2021 theme, when I go to look at the theme, or when I go to look at the site, we can see that that footer sidebar or widget area is actually in the footer of every page in the site. So if I go and look at the Brownies post, for example, you can see that that footer is there, that's that footer sidebar or widget area. Now in some cases, for some themes, so if I go back to my themes, and I switch to my success theme, let me activate that. I'm going to skip that, because I've already set it up before. When I go to the widgets for that, you can see that the widgets are using the older widget area, the older sidebar editor, and that's the classic sidebar editor, just because the developers of this particular theme prefer to use this widget editor versus the block widget editor. So you can see it's still using those same blocks that we have in there, so I've got blocks inside of it. But for this particular theme, it's just using a different editor for it. Now block theme, so if I switch to a block theme, like 2023, for example, let me activate that, those aren't going to have the widgets. So you can see here that if I go into the appearance menu, you don't see widgets. If I go into the customizer, I can't add widgets or anything like that. But what I can do instead is I can use the site editor. So if I click on editor, that's going to take me into the site editor. If I toggle navigation here, you can see that I can edit the various templates within the site. So for example, if I wanted to modify the home template, I would click on home and I can add a sidebar to that template. It's a little bit trickier, but let me turn on the list view so I can see all of the sections that are in this particular template. And you can see right now all of the content is in this group. So I'm going to add a column, or I'm going to add columns. So let me just add the columns block. So let me add that over here. I'm just going to drag this over here. I'm going to move it up. I wanted it to go before the title there. There we go. And I'm going to have it so that it's 6633. Okay, it's up at the top now. So I'm going to go back into that list view so I can select this group, makes it easier to select, and I'm going to drag that into the first column there. So now that group right there has the title of the site, and it's also got my blog. And the second column, I'm going to add a search right there. I'm going to save this. And it's going to update the home template. So let me save that. So now when I go and look at the site, let me go into the blog there. It's in the blog. You can see now that there is a sidebar and it's going to be over on that right side in that right column. And this is how you would use sidebars in a block based theme. So 2023 or any of the newer block themes, that would be how you would use a sidebar is by modifying the template for that particular page. So sidebars are a little bit tricky to use in block themes, but they are very well supported in classic themes. So thanks for watching. Stay tuned for the next lesson where I will show you how to change page layouts when you're using a classic theme.

Intermediate Provider : Chrissy Rey 4 Lessons · 29m in English

Course Description

WordPress currently has two types of themes: classic and block. Both types of themes can use blocks. Classic themes make use of sidebars, which are also known as widget areas, to add content that can be seen on multiple pages throughout the website. Block themes don’t use sidebars or widgets, but you can add similar functionality using page templates and template parts. For many themes you can change the layout of types of pages, but how you do it depends on the theme.

In the Sidebars and Widgets module, you will learn how to use sidebars, widgets, and page layouts to create a consistent look throughout your WordPress website. First, you will learn what sidebars are and how they are used. Next, you’ll explore how to change page layouts in classic and block themes. You will also learn how to add and edit widgets. Finally, you will learn how to use the Widget Options plugin to control the visibility of widgets based on several factors.

What You'll Learn

Explore what sidebars (widget areas), templates, and template parts are and how they are used
Change page layouts in both classic and block themes
Add and edit widgets to display content across multiple pages
Use the Widget Options plugin to control widget visibility based on several factors
Create a consistent look throughout a WordPress website using sidebars, widgets, and page layouts

Key Takeaways

WordPress currently has two types of themes, classic and block, and both types can use blocks.
Classic themes use sidebars (also known as widget areas) to add content that appears on multiple pages throughout a website.
Block themes don't use sidebars or widgets, but similar functionality can be added using page templates and template parts.
How you change the layout of a type of page depends on the theme you are using.
The Widget Options plugin lets you control the visibility of widgets based on several factors.

Frequently Asked Questions

What will I learn in this Sidebars and Widgets module?

You will learn how to use sidebars, widgets, and page layouts to create a consistent look throughout your WordPress website. The module covers what sidebars are, how to change page layouts in classic and block themes, how to add and edit widgets, and how to use the Widget Options plugin to control widget visibility.

Does this course cover both classic and block themes?

Yes. It explains that classic themes use sidebars and widgets, while block themes use page templates and template parts for similar functionality, and it shows how to change page layouts in both classic and block themes.

What lessons are included?

The module includes four lessons: What are Sidebars?, Changing Page Layouts, Adding and Editing Widgets, and Using the Widget Options Plugin.

What is the Widget Options plugin used for in this course?

You will learn to use the Widget Options plugin to control the visibility of widgets based on several factors.