How to install and use widgets

A widget is something that you might want on your sidebar, such as a “Category” list or the “Most Recent Comments”, or a link to your admin pages. Widgets are named as such because they allow you to move things (blocks) around, in and out of your sidebar.

The main advantage to using widgets is that you don’t need to change the coding of your WordPress theme to change the blocks that appear to the left of the main column. A simple drag-and-drop interface will then make the process of BLOG index page editing as easy as ABC!

Installing Widgets:

Download Widgets WordPress Plugin and unzip the archive. You need to preserve the directory structure in the archive when extracting these files. Use an FTP client to access your host web server, then put the “widgets” folder into the “/wp-content/plugins/” folder. After this go to the “Plugins” section of your BLOG administration interface. Activate “Sidebar widgets”, “Google Search widget” and “del.icio.us widget”. After this go to the “Presentation” section and choose the “Sidebar Widgets” tab. This will open up the widgets editing interface. Drag and drop your desired widgets to the sidebars.

If you are running WordPress 2.2 or higher, you do not need to install the Widgets plug-in. Widgets are now part of WordPress core. You can proceed straight to the WordPress Widgets Blog to find some widgets to try out.

The Widgets official website: www.automattic.com/code/widgets
More widgets from WordPress: widgets.wordpress.com