What types of WordPress widgets will you need in 2017?
If you're like me, you only look for a new WordPress plugin when you need something specific. The problem with this approach is that you often miss out on new and ready-made plugins.
In an attempt to shed some light on the new and currently well-supported WordPress widgets, I present to you the 20 WordPress widgets that are available on CodeCanyon in 2017:
1. Sidebar and Widget Manager for WordPress
Get more control over your layout and sidebars for WordPress widgets with the Sidebar & Widget Manager plugin for WordPress.
No programming knowledge required and has many options.
Peculiarities:
- Supports WPML, WooCommerce, bbPress and BuddyPress
- Widget visibility, alignment, and location
- Fully responsive design
- and much more!
Whether you need to customize advanced layouts, replace a theme's sidebar, or create entirely widgetized pages, you'll have plenty of options. Get more control over where your WordPress widgets are displayed with Sidebar & Widget Manager for WordPress.
2.
You may not want all widgets to appear on every page. With Advanced Text Widget Pro, the options are limitless.
It's easy to customize widget display using:
- 10 different default conditions
- 20 visibility options
- Or create your own
With multiple condition arguments included, you should have no problem customizing the widget's display logic. is a simple option that allows you to control your widgets.
3.
JSquareThemes is a new and upcoming CodeCanyon developer that publishes well-designed plugins such as JT Posts Showcase.
Display your messages in over 40 different styles.
This WordPress plugin has all the basic features you need in a post store widget:
- Order by ID, title, date, author, random and ascending and descending
- Control the number of messages to display
- Display by category
The very best, 40+ styles included, superbly designed.
4.
It's not easy to find plugins for popular posts in WordPress, so Popular Posts Widget for WordPress - Go Trend is a welcome addition.
Easily customize your popular message widget to your liking:
- Show entries for the last day, week, year or all time
- Customize fonts and colors
- Sort by comments or views
- Unlimited Layouts
- And many many others
This popular post plugin is one of the best I've seen in a long time. could very well be one of the best blog plugins on CodeCanyon in 2017.
5.
Coliris - Most Popular Recent Posts Widget is a colorful and cool widget that displays your most popular recent posts.
Peculiarities:
- Simple widget configuration
- Cache update every five minutes
- Advanced message filtering and content display
You can display on multiple widgets:
- Most commented posts
- Popular posts
- Recent Posts
- Pages
Add some color to your sidebar with a plugin.
6.
Twitter Info Widget WordPress Plugin was included in the .
And this is good.
Twitter widgets have become something of an abandoned market, so it's great to find such a solid new solution.
It is fully flexible, customizable and uses the Twitter API. This is not a messages widget. This is a Twitter information widget. It includes tweet, next and subsequent account data, which is automatically synced at the end of each day.
This is the perfect way to display information about your Twitter.
7.
Almost every website build will need some social media links. Using JT Social Links is a quick and easy way to add these social media icons to your widget areas.
Peculiarities:
- 15 Best Social Networking Sites
- Fully responsive design
- Multiple styles
8.
Simple Icon Picker is a unique WordPress plugin that is good to keep on hand. It is described like this:
“A creative WordPress widget, written with love, that makes it easy to manage icons and their descriptions.”
Simply put, this is a very simple way to add an icon to your widget area. An icon followed by descriptive text.
You can customize the CSS, choose colors, and easily customize each widget in the admin area.
Another great widget to keep in your WordPress plugin suite.
9.
You can:
- Show bio
- Show full names
- Give contact information
- Show avatar
- And many many others
This should be a good solution for multi-author blogs (or a simple solution for personal blogs).
This is an easy way to display author information on pages or highlight authors in the sidebar.
10.
One of the most commonly used WordPress widgets is for weather - not only displaying the forecast for the default location, but also based on IP address. It is an ideal addition to local business and community websites.
One of the most reliable and weather-focused solutions is the Astero WordPress Weather plugin.
This WordPress weather plugin has almost everything you need in a weather widget:
- Forecast.io or Openweathermap.org service
- Fully customizable and two display modes
- HTML5 Geolocation with Backup IP Address
- Search by city or zip code
- 3 background types
- and much more
Weather (see what I did there?) You want to add the current temperature to the sidebar, or the weekly forecast will do it for you.
11.
Better Weather - WordPress and Visual Composer Widget is one of the most beautiful weather widgets you will find.
There's probably no better way to show a forecast.
- 10 designs and fully customizable
- Supports 4 weather sources
- Ready WPML translation
- Automatic detection via user IP address
- and much more
12. WeatherWlider Premium WordPress Weather Widget
If you want to bring more attention to your weather forecast, WeatherSlider Premium WordPress Weather Widget is a great way to go.
It includes weather effects, touch, and the size can vary from 240 to 1300 pixels wide.
Peculiarities:
- Supports placement of multiple sliders with unique settings
- CSS3 Animation Using jQuery
- 48 different weather types
- 3 day forecast
- and much more
A great way to provide weather information to your website visitors.
13.
Add a list of events to your WordPress widget area using the JT Event Calendar plugin.
This modern and fully responsive widget includes multiple styles and is easy to use.
Choose from seven different styles and include:
- Event name
- Information
- Location
- And a link
Simple and clear.
14.
Advanced Business Hours is ideal for displaying business hours on a business website. Not only is it well designed, but it also includes useful features to implement and customize.
It is fully responsive, customizable, and retina display ready.
Other features:
- Working hours for the current day
- Start and end of working hours
- Working hours during the week
- Group days in a row
- and other
Adding and updating work hours has never been this amazing or easy. is one of the best WordPress widgets for working time management.
15.
The Opening Time Widget is a great way to show opening hours because it focuses more on customization than functionality.
An easy to design widget with seven included designs and support for 700+ Google fonts. Easily change texts, fonts and designs.
Fully responsive and a welcome addition to any small business website.
16.
Easily add Google Place Reviews to small business websites using a widget or shortcode with Easy Google Places Reviews.
You can also add a “Write a Review” button to increase the number of reviews on Google Place.
Peculiarities:
- Display reviews with minimum rating
- Set the maximum number of reviews
- Select transition time
- and much more
Create the best business website with .
17.
If you want to add Google Map to your WordPress site, use Google Maps Widget PRO.
Some features include:
- 4 map sketch types and interactive map modes
- Personalized Pin Codes and Descriptions
- Multiple contacts support
- And many many others
Embed fully customized Google Maps as a widget or shortcode.
The Google Maps PRO widget may be the only Google Map WordPress plugin you'll ever need. Ever.
18.
Showcase your WooCommerce products in a completely modern and responsive way with JT Products Showcase.
Widget features include:
- Product SKU display
- Add to cart display
- Display detailed information
- List or Grid
- and much more
Easy to use and displays your products stylishly.
19.
WashCommerce Dashboard Stats is a must-have plugin for WooCommerce users. There is no easier way to track your sales statistics.
Real-time statistics include sales and income for:
- daily
- Monthly
- And every year
“It also compares your sales in real time and goes back to previous periods and gives you the percentage change in real time.”
A great addition to WordPress eCommerce plugins.
20. Smart Market Widgets
If you're selling on Envato, you'll want to take a closer look at Smart Market Widgets.
Using the Envato API, you can display information about files available across all Envato marketplaces.
This includes five different widgets:
- Featured Author
- Featured File
- list of files
- Search files
- Powered By API Banner
You can display your own products as well as others by adding a referrer to each URL.
Smart Market Widgets are a great way to connect your site to Envato.
Conclusion
I'm the first to admit that it's easy to fall into a plugin rut. While it's good to stick with what you know and are familiar with, there comes a time when you have to consider new ways of doing things. I hope this list will help you find the best replacements for the plugins you're already using, as well as give you something to think about as you introduce new plugins in future builds.
Envato Market has a great selection of WordPress widgets, not to mention , and with code from Envato Tuts+ waiting for you this year.
What are some of your favorite new WordPress widgets you've discovered recently?
18 June 2015
Anna Aprilskaya Category: Website building 20 comments
Using plugins you can improve the template and the site as a whole. Some of them are required to install, while others I can only recommend from personal experience. You can decide for yourself whether to install them or not. You can find other similar plugins and use them.
I will list and describe the most necessary plugins for WordPress in Russian: how to download and install on the site, as well as perform basic settings.
Plugin– a combination of folders and files in the archive. To work, you need to transfer the archive to the hosting in a specific folder. This can be done in several ways:
1. Find the plugin in the search- the simplest and most accessible way to everyone. Just go to the left menu Plugins – Add plugin. There will be a search field on the right - find any plugin (for example, All In One SEO Pack).
The search will display the required plugin. Pay attention to the rating and the number of downloads - some create fake plugins and introduce viruses into them. Be carefull.
Click on the plugin name and Install. Once it is installed, click “Activate Plugin”.
2. Install the archive from wordpress.org/plugins. You can usually find it by searching for plugins in the search engine.
You need to download the archive from the official website, and upload this archive to the website. To do this, go to Plugins – Add new and here at the top click Load plugin.
Select the desired archive, click Install and Activate.
You can also install plugins from other sites.
3. Using Filezilla. Launch the program, connect to the site and follow the path: www – site.ru – wp-content – plugins. Upload the unzipped plugin here.
To activate, go to Plugins - select the desired plugin and click Activate under it.
Plugins for WordPress in Russian: where to download
It is much more convenient to work with Russian versions of programs, so as not to “poke” at random, but to consciously configure plugins. Although there are also those that do not require special settings - installed, activated and this is enough to work.
Russian-language plugins can be found on the website mywordpress.ru. Finding it is very simple - type “Wordpress plugins” into the search bar and the first link will lead to the desired site.
Unfortunately, not all plugins are on the site, but some can be found.
Many popular plugins have already been translated into Russian, so you don’t have to deliberately search for them in other places. Just use standard methods for installing plugins (described at the beginning of the article).
The most necessary plugins for WordPress
So, we’ve come to the most important thing: useful plugins needed for the site. Some can be omitted or replaced with other similar ones, it all depends on your preferences.
The hello dolly plugin is added by default - you can remove it. Nothing bad will happen, it is purely for entertainment purposes.
Akismet– a useful anti-spam plugin. The built-in WordPress settings are not enough for complete protection, and very soon you may end up with a bunch of spam emails mixed with real comments. It takes a lot of time to check and remove each of them, so install Akismet right away.
Blog without Akismet – haven’t checked comments in a year.
But it’s not enough to install it, you need to activate it and register it on the website. Only then will it work properly. This is done quite simply, follow the instructions:
Install - go to Settings - click the Get API key button.
On the next page, go to the very bottom and click the Awesome, let’s kill some spam! Next is standard registration: email, login and password.
Then a page will appear where you can configure the amount of remuneration for developers. If you want to activate Akismet for free, simply move the slider to the far left. A zero should appear. Then enter your first and last name in the fields on the right, and you will receive a key.
It must be entered in a special field in the Settings. And then check the boxes at your discretion (or leave them as is). I recommend setting "Automatically reject obvious spam so it doesn't catch your eye." Then you won't have to waste time clearing spam.
All In One SEO Pack– the best plugin for optimizing articles and the site as a whole. I believe that it must be installed and configured to promote the site. But I examined it in detail in this article.
Cyr-To-Lat– the plugin allows you to translate the Russian page name (heading) into a Latin url. This helps speed up indexing and promotion of the site. And besides, the links look much nicer this way.
It doesn’t require any special settings – just install and activate.
WordPress Related Posts– displays “similar posts” at the end of the article. Either they are automatically inserted, or you configure them yourself. I recommend manually selecting the entries to display.
Installed as standard, then go to Settings - WordPress Related Posts, and here you can customize the appearance. For example, what inscription will be displayed, the number of posts and their appearance. It's all up to you, so no specific recommendations.
Google XML Sitemaps– a useful plugin that helps to automatically create Sitemaps for a website (this is necessary for promotion in search engines).
It does not require any special settings, just install the plugin in the standard way and activate it. If desired, you can configure the content and priority of displaying posts, as well as block the display of some categories.
It allows you to automatically create website content. This is very convenient for both the webmaster and readers.
To find it, type Dagon Design Sitemap Generator into the search bar and go to the first site. There, click on Latest Release and save. Then add the plugin using the second method (download plugin - install).
Set the Russian language in the settings to make it easier to customize the appearance: display posts, pages, or all at once, how many posts are displayed on 1 page, etc. There is nothing complicated in the settings, everything is clearly laid out.
It is best to create site content on a separate page (All Site Articles). Go to edit code (Text) and insert just one word:
!—ddsitemapgen—
(enclose it in<>)
Publish and you're done, now you can place it in the top menu in a prominent place. There is only one problem - at the bottom of the page the message Plugin is written by dagondesign.com is displayed. If it bothers you too much, you can remove it. Go to Plugins and under Dagon Design Sitemap Generator click on Edit.
Open the file for editing, press ctrl+F, enter dagondesign.com and find the line:
Remove it and update the file. Now nothing more.
Hyper Cache– a useful plugin for website caching. It speeds up the loading of website pages, which is very popular with both users and search engines. For young sites this is not so important, but the older and heavier your blog is, the more noticeable its work will be. Does not require any special settings. You can use any other caching plugin or do without it.
Useful WordPress plugins
In this section I will list just useful plugins that I use on the blog. Some of them are not very well known and I had to look through many other options before I found them.
Comment plugins
ark-hidecommentlinks– closes links in the comments section from indexing, but leaves them active. You can see examples on my website - if you click on a commenter's name, you will be taken to their website, but these links do not count as external links. No need to configure, just install and let it work.
Subscribe To Comments– plugin for subscribing to blog comments. Those. a person leaves a comment, checks the “Receive notification of new comments” checkbox and can actively participate in the conversation. He will receive an email notification if someone adds a new message to this article. It increases traffic well and helps to get regular readers.
Configure the plugin in the Settings section - Subscribe to Comments. Just indicate the sender's name (for example, Anna Aprilskaya or Blog site) and email (preferably on the site domain). Enter the text that will be displayed in letters. Example:
Comment Redirect by Yoast– allows you to redirect after the first comment to a specific page. Usually on the “Thanks for the first comment” page, where you thank for participation in the life of the site, offer the most interesting content and place a subscription form. If the site is running a competition for commentators or subscribers, be sure to report it.
Go to Plugins - Comment Redirect, and there select from the drop-down list the page to which the person will be sent. It is advisable to remove this page from the general list (menu and sitemap). This can be done using a plugin Advanced Category Excluder.
Top Commentators Widget– allows you to create a Top Commentators widget. People comment more on sites where they can become more visible and get into the sidebar. In addition, with this plugin it is more convenient to conduct commentary competitions, because the calculation is automatic.
You can configure the widget in the Design - Widgets - Top Commentators section. Move this widget to your sidebar section. There are many settings here, let's look at them:
Change widget title: what inscription will be above the top? Top commentators or Rating of commentators.
Add description below the title: Description for the widget. You can leave it blank or offer to participate in a commentator competition.
Exclude these users: exclude from the top. Enter your nickname so as not to take first place.
Reset period every: For what period is the data taken? Month, year, all the time?
Limit characters in names to: Limitation of characters in the user name/nickname. Depends on the template, but on average 10-16
Remarks for blank list: what message will be displayed if no one has left a comment yet? For example, Be the first to comment
Open each link in a new window? Open link in new window - Yes
Show number of comments for each commenter? Show number of comments next to name - Yes
Use the following default Gravatar: What kind of picture will there be if the person doesn’t have an avatar? Choose to your taste, I put Mystery Man and the gravatar size (Size:) 65
Leave the rest as is and click Save.
Plugins for article design
wp-jquery-lightbox– plugin for images for WordPress. It is very convenient to view article images (for example, open any image in the article). The photos get closer, the background darkens, you can scroll through all the photos in the article. I tried several other plugins, but I only liked this one.
To change the standard design, you can go to Settings - jQuery Lightbox. There you can customize the image sizes, appearance, appearance method and other similar nuances.
Advanced Spoiler allows you to make neat and beautiful spoilers in articles. With their help, you can hide some information or reduce the size of the article. You can customize the appearance and deployment mode of the spoiler.
WordPress Post Tabs– allows you to create beautiful tabs on the site. I rarely use it, but articles become much more convenient with it.
MaxSite Russian Date is a simple plugin that converts the months into a readable form: instead of June 16, it will be June 16.
Other plugins
WordPress Protection– a simple plugin that helps protect copyrighted articles from copying. Go to Settings - WordPress Protection to configure it.
- Disable Text-Selection ? Check this box and you won't be able to highlight text on your site.
- Don't Disable Mouse Right Click. Right mouse button (RMB) works.
- Disable Mouse Right Click without any alert. PCM does not work, no warning appears.
- Disable Mouse Right Click with an alert box: RMB does not work, but you can specify the text below that will be displayed.
WP-CopyrightPro You can also use this plugin to protect against article theft. Turn it on and when copying, your inscription will appear after the quote. For example, Information taken from the website website
Scroll to Top Button– sets an Up arrow on the website. With its help you can quickly get to the top of the page. An example can be seen on my website on the right. A very useful thing, especially when there are a lot of long articles on the site) Does not require configuration.
There are many similar plugins. I recommend typing this name into the search bar and downloading it from wordpress.org. Choose the option where there is a VKontakte button. This option has very flexible settings in Russian, so I highly recommend using this option.
These are all the most necessary plugins for WordPress in Russian that I can recommend. Study the information and look for other useful plugins, recommend them in the comments. But it’s better not to install too much - this will load the site and slow it down.
Widgets are one of the many amazing features of WordPress. If in order to edit the content of the site, we use the editor and , then to change the content of the sidebar or footer, widgets are exactly what we need.
Essentially, widgets can be added anywhere on site pages, but this depends on the WordPress theme you are using, or more precisely on the number of people registered in it. There are themes that don't support widgets at all.
How to Add or Remove Widgets (For Beginners)
To create a widget in WordPress, you must first have at least one sidebar connected, if you have difficulty with this, then you should read the detailed one (it also describes how to add widget support in a WordPress theme). Widgets can also be displayed on the site directly through PHP code using the function.
If you have figured this out, go to the page in the admin panel Appearance > Widgets. See the list of available widgets? In order to add a widget to the site, you need to drag it to one of the areas on the right (sidebars).
In later versions of WordPress, there is another way to add a widget - you just need to click on its title and select the sidebar you want to add it to from the drop-down list:
Once the widget is added, we will see its settings. In the Calendar widget this is the title:
This way we can add an unlimited number of widgets to any area of the site, customize, edit them, and change the order by dragging and dropping.
In order to delete the widget, click the “Delete” link (you can see it in the previous screenshot). If you only want to temporarily disable a widget while saving its settings, drag it to the “Inactive Widgets” block, which is located under the “Available Widgets” block.
Disabling default WordPress widgets
If you do not use and do not plan to use any of the standard WordPress widgets, you can completely disable it using the function, after which the widget will no longer be displayed in the admin panel on the page Appearance > Widgets, it will also disappear from the site pages.
To disable widgets, you can use the ready-made code below:
- Paste the code into the functions.php file of the current theme.
- Delete or comment out lines with those widgets that do not need to be deleted.
- And only then can you save the file.
| function true_remove_default_widget() ( unregister_widget("WP_Widget_Archives" ) ; // Archives unregister_widget("WP_Widget_Calendar" ) ; // Calendar unregister_widget("WP_Widget_Categories" ) ; // Categories unregister_widget("WP_Widget_Meta" ) ; // Meta unregister_wi dget("WP_Widget_Pages" ) ; // Pages unregister_widget("WP_Widget_Recent_Comments" ) ; // Latest comments unregister_widget("WP_Widget_Recent_Posts" ) ; // Recent posts unregister_widget("WP_Widget_RSS" ) ; // RSS unregister_widget("WP_Widget_Search" ) ; // Search unregister_widget("WP_Widget_Tag_Cloud" ) ; // Label cloud unregister_widget("WP_Widget_Text" ) ; // Text unregister_widget("WP_Nav_Menu_Widget" ) ; // Custom menu) add_action ( "widgets_init" , "true_remove_default_widget" , 20 ) ; |
This feature allows you to delete not only standard widgets. As a function parameter, you can specify the name of the class of any widget (for example, which was registered in a plugin).
If you have any customized widgets on your site, keep in mind that when you delete a widget, all its settings will also be deleted, so if you suddenly later decide that you need the widget that you disabled, you will have to configure it again.
Creating your own widget
Adding your own widget with settings to WordPress is not at all difficult, but of course it wouldn’t hurt to have at least a little understanding of PHP. I will not describe how PHP code works in this post, just ask your question in the comments if you have any difficulties with the code.
Now we will create a widget of popular posts - we will display posts sorted by the number of comments via .
In its structure, our widget will be similar to the standard WordPress widget “”, that is, it will have similar parameters (title and number of displayed posts) and a similar HTML template for displaying posts (post titles with links in the form
- -list).
- ">
- I won’t describe each plugin in detail - the description of almost each of them would be worth a new post. Install, watch, test (at the time of publication of this post, each of the plugins was tested by me personally and everything worked perfectly). Beautiful Yahoo Weather
- — a weather forecast widget, quite good and beautiful compared to analogues. But for these purposes it is probably better to use WordPress in conjunction with informers from Gismeteo, Yandex, etc. NextGEN Gallery
- is a plugin for creating and managing image galleries in WordPress, one of the functions of which is a gallery widget. Search by Google
- — a site search form from Google (Google Custom Search). Slick Contact Forms
- — feedback form widget. Tabbed Login Widget
- - authorization widget, made in the form of three tabs - “Login”, “Registration”, “Forgot password”, very convenient. WP Currency Converter
- - Currency Converter. WP Editor Widget
- - use the WordPress editor to populate this widget. WP-Cumulus
- — adds a flash cloud of tags and/or categories. WP-Polls
- — a convenient plugin for creating surveys on the site. Yet Another Related Posts Plugin (YARPP)
- — a powerful plugin for displaying similar posts. YouTube Channel Gallery
- place advertisements;
- publish new things on the site (sections, posts, comments)
- serve as additional navigation for the site, which has a positive effect on the attitude of visitors to your resource;
- differ in speed of use.
Paste this code into functions.php:
/* * creating a widget */ function __construct() ( parent::__construct( "true_top_widget" , "Popular Posts", // widget title array("description" => "Allows you to display posts sorted by the number of comments in them.") // description ) ; ) /* * widget frontend */ public function widget( $args, $instance) ( $title = apply_filters( "widget_title" , $instance [ "title" ] ) ; // apply a filter to the title (optional)$posts_per_page = $instance [ "posts_per_page" ] ; echo $args [ "before_widget" ] ; if ( ! empty ( $title ) ) echo $args [ "before_title" ] . $title . $args [ "after_title" ] ;
get_field_name("title"); ?> " type="text" value=" get_field_id("posts_per_page"); ?> ">Number of posts: // by default 5 posts are displayed return $instance ; ) )/* * widget registration */ |
function true_top_posts_widget_load() ( register_widget( "trueTopPostsWidget" ) ; ) add_action ( "widgets_init" , "true_top_posts_widget_load" ) ;I dragged this code "as is" (naturally removing the first line Appearance > Widgets
we see our widget:
Let's drag it to some sidebar on the right:
That's all, we indicate the title of the widget (if necessary), the number of posts that we want to display and click “Save” - after that the widget will appear on the site.
List of plugins with useful widgets
Of course, you don’t have to create each widget yourself; you can use ready-made solutions for specific tasks. In order to add any of these plugins to your site, copy its name, go to the admin panel Plugins > Add new
and paste the copied name into the search form.
— a widget with the latest videos from the YouTube channel. The widget looks very nice, good and easy to customize.
Over time, the list will be expanded.
If you need help with your website or maybe even development from scratch - .
WordPress widgets are created to implement goals in independent blocks that are placed in a selected, dedicated area provided by the WordPress theme.
In this article we will look at the rule for adding widgets, as well as their configuration and use.
First, let's figure out what widgets are, then look at those available to us by default, and finally add a few to our website bar. This article is presented as an informational article that will help you understand the essence of widgets and reveal their potential use.
What are WordPress widgets?
Without bogging you down with difficult terms, let's just say that widgets are an additional tool for providing your visitors with useful information. WordPress widgets, as in all other CMSs, are placed in side panels - site bars; this is a separate block, independent of the main document. The scope of use of widgets has no boundaries; you can place links, advertisements, site navigation and much more in them.
The advantage of widgets is that they easily allow you to place the same information on all pages without fear of it being mistaken for duplication.
Overview of widgets provided by standard WordPress settings
You can watch a short video about installing and configuring WordPress widgets, or read the text description.
Let's look at the widgets provided by default in . There are a lot of them at first glance, but you will only use a few of them within one site.
The following screenshot provides a standard set of WordPress widgets:
How to add widgets in WordPress?
How can we add widgets to the desired location on the page? It’s very simple - we take and drag the name into the bar we need on the site, where we can make individual settings for each of them.
Also, widgets can be added directly in the visual view, through the “Appearance” -> “Customize” -> “Widgets” menu, this is a little more convenient in that we immediately see the changes brought about by the introduction of widgets on the page.
The Role of WordPress Widgets
Widgets take on a significant part of the work and have occupied a huge niche in the field of WordPress website building, they:
How to add additional WordPress widgets?
To add additional widgets to the standard ones, you either need to tinker with the code, which is quite difficult and cumbersome, or use plugins that will do this work.
One of the best plugins is one that can easily take on the function of adding widgets, while spending a minimum amount of resources.
After practicing with widgets, you will understand that there is nothing complicated, and you can easily master this functionality and, the topic of which is a little more difficult to understand, but we will cope with it.
In conclusion, using widgets has become commonplace for any WordPress site. Let’s say even more, it’s now difficult to do without them at all; they replaced a number of plugins that loaded our server and slowed down the loading of the site.
Widgets are an integral part of any WordPress design. Each theme contains several widget areas. These elements are used to display some useful information for visitors and perform a specific function.
By default, WordPress has a set of widgets and you can perform simple operations on them - add, delete, customize. In this article we will talk about plugins for WordPress widgets that improve these elements in one way or another.
Free and easy to use plugin, despite the English language from dFactory. It provides a new feature that is often needed by webmasters, and which, unfortunately, is not yet available in the standard CMS - it hides certain widgets on a particular page or post.
The plugin does not have its own settings. After its activation, each widget acquires additional options with which you can configure their visibility on pages and posts.
Display Widgets
The plugin is similar to the previous one, but has more features - in addition to allowing you to hide and show widgets on certain posts and pages, you can also customize this display for platform types and user roles.
After activation, additional options and features appear in which you can adjust their visibility. The product is developed by Phpbits Creative Studio and is free.
WP Page Widget
The WordPress widget plugin continues the example from CodeAndMore called WP Page Widget. And it solves a fairly common problem that webmasters face - publishing widgets on pages and posts.
By default, the CMS does not have this option. When activated, a block with widgets appears in the editor. Any of them can be published on pages, posts, and other types of content.
The tool is free and in English.
Q2W3 Fixed Widget
A simple plugin from Max Bond that can be successfully used for advertising purposes. The essence of its work is that it creates an additional option thanks to which you can create a floating widget. That is, it will always remain visible, regardless of the degree of scrolling of the page.
This can be used to create an element that needs to focus the attention of visitors - an advertising banner, an ad or an important navigation element.
Disable Widgets
The simplest plugin from required that allows you to disable unused widgets. Once activated, it creates an options page where you can check off unnecessary items.
In addition to sidebar widgets, it also allows you to disable unnecessary widgets in the WordPress console. It supports both elements built into the CMS and those created additionally by plugins. The tool is in English and free.
jQuery Archive List Widget
The plugin adds a new one to the widgets, which displays the site archive. Unlike the archive built into WordPress, this one has significantly more settings and a more pleasant, responsive interface.
The settings are in English, but intuitive, all options are collected in the widget itself. The developer of this tool is Miguel Useche.
SiteOrigin Widgets
The developers from SiteOrigin are already known to many webmasters for their high-quality and useful products. They also produce plugins for widgets. One of them is SiteOrigin Widgets.
After activation, you will receive many additional features that can be useful for the site. These include testimonials, call to action, social media buttons, slider and more.
New elements are qualitatively translated into Russian and the plugin is completely free.
Widget CSS Classes
Free tool developed by C.M. Kendrick, which will only be useful to those who are proficient in CSS and want to change the look of the design. After activation, each widget has a field into which you can add a custom CSS class. There is an options page in Russian.
Authors Widget
This plugin creates a new element for WordPRess, the functions of which include displaying a list of site authors. The tool will be useful for multi-user sites.
After activation, a new element is created in WordPress, which has its own settings. You can customize the appearance of the author list to best suit the design of the site. The plugin has no other settings.
Interface in English, developed by Gavriel Fleischer.
Recent Posts Widget With Thumbnails
Widget developed by Martin Stehle that displays recently published posts. In general, WordPress has functions for this feature, but the one created by this plugin has more settings and a nicer appearance.
All plugin settings are collected in the widget itself. Its main difference from the built-in one in WordPress is that this one also allows you to display thumbnails of the latest posts. Of course, there are additional useful options. Everything is in Russian and free.
