A few months ago, I wrote about how we could widgetize different areas of our site. Today, I want to ask everyone what areas should be widgetized.
This is the third post in my If you were a WordPress theme developer series, in which I’m asking users to give their feedback on how themes should work. We’ve already talked about page templates and 404 templates. So, add your input on those posts as well.
What are widgets?
Well, if you don’t know what widgets are, you’re either new to WordPress or haven’t came out from under your rock in some time. The WordPress Codex has a good explanation of widgets.
Basically, widgets let you dress up your blog with cool add-ons straight from your WordPress dashboard, which gives the average user a lot more control over what’s shown on his or her blog.
Typical themes will have a certain amount of widget sections, which lets you add widgets.
In most themes, you can only add widgets to your sidebar. Some themes have even branched out and added a footer widget section.
One of the best implementations of an advanced widget system is Ian Stewart’s Thematic theme. Even though it is a bit more advanced, it doesn’t add a lot of complexity for users. It actually makes it much easier to customize your blog. I would definitely recommend giving it a go.
What sections of a theme should be widgetized?
I want to branch out a bit more from the standard sidebar-only widget areas. As users, you might have a better idea about what would work great for you.
If you developed your own theme, what areas of the theme would have a widget section? Don’t let current and past trends hinder your imagination.
One thing that’s fairly common in Drupal themes is widget-izing the header. Makes it easy to add banner ads or images.
Widgetizing the header always seems like a cool idea, at least until I decide I want to do something different than normal with the header and widgets would get in the way.
Of course, you could also allow users to make their own navigation menus with that option too.
Now I’m off to think of optimal ways to widgetize the header of my theme…
I have previously used widgets for each key section, i.e. header, post content, footer, etc, but I wonder whether widgets are really the best way to make this modular?
I am not convinced that widgets are sufficiently flexible to get to the real meat of it, like moving around content within each post template.
I like having the top, bottom and sides widitized. Ok, that might sound crazy.. but as for the top I have one theme which could use widgets on the top and it would work much better – for that site. It doesn’t work for all the sites I use
http://www.girlgeekette.net/
has sections at the top – Latest Post, Latest Comments and Popular. Now if those were changable being widgets and not handcoded…
and same at the bottom. I would like to see a theme that uses a large functional footer with 3 widgets at the bottom (much like that example had at the top)
Of course, naturally I like the right side widets.. left may be good too if it fit the theme..
What would be neat in Visionary would be if I could add widgets between the feature and the excerpt blocks on like the home page. The XHTML section there is already awesome as it is. I like being able to customize that section like I did in
http://www.decaturhighbandreunion.com/
but to take it a step further and have a choice of using the XHTML entry as it is – or adding 1 or 2 widgets.. or 1 widget of XHTML and one pre defined widget?
I really really hope I have overwhelmed or bored you with all my 2cents on each of these posts.. I guess I need to slow down lol
Oh, and I LOVE being able to use different widgets on different widgets displaying on different pages. That is one of the things I love so much about your themes! (Visionary specifically). It makes all the difference in the world for me!
I’d stay away from the header and stick to sidebar(s) and the footer.
All of it. Seriously. The whole page should be widgetable. And AJAX-encrusted-move-aroundable-and-resizeable. That would be my ideal.
In my site I modify my theme to have widgets in anywhere I see its appropriate to add widgets. Below is a list of my favorite widget areas, but I don’t use all of these areas at once (on the same theme):
1. Sidebar(s) – Whether its single sidebar or multi-sidebar.
2. Fat footer.
3. Below the header and above the rest of the content.
4. Parts of the header (If the logo is floated left, I’d add right floated widget. And if logo is floated right, left floated widget).
5. At the end of
page.phpandsingle.phpjust above teh comments area.6. Lower parts of
index.phporhome.phpI know all those areas cannot be applied on one theme. But, I can use them on different themes.
Andrew
For many of us, widgets aren’t the ideal solution. I personally never use them at all because of the lack of flexibility on individual pages of my site.
However, with the average WP user, I don’t see a lot of other options when it comes to flexibility other than even more options from the theme settings/options page. That’s something I’m trying to move away from though.
erica stjohn
I definitely see how those top widget areas could be useful on certain types of sites, especially after looking at yours.
The bottom/footer widgets are always useful to have too. My next theme will definitely have a widget section that you can manage that with.
You haven’t overwhelmed me or bored me at all. I love hearing what theme users have to say, which is what this series of posts is all about.
I’m also glad you like the different widgets for different pages. Sometimes, I feel like those are useless because I don’t see a lot of people taking advantage of that functionality.
mkjones
I tried the header last night, but I’m just not digging it as much as some might. I think a section just above the content area might work well though.
James Spratt
I suppose that would be ideal.
J Mehmett
I haven’t given much thought to adding widgets above the comments area. That actually might be kind of cool with a related posts, about the author, or subscribe widget.
Thanks Justin
I appreciate your comment! I worry sometimes.. yes, I do have many opinions and I don’t always hold back.. and it leaves me wondering if I just need to learn to hush more LOL!
I do appreciate you work on the themes.. and more than anything the fact you appreciate the input from people using them. It makes you stand out as a theme creator!
I do like the different widgets for different pages. Unfortunately, on my newest site I have not added enough content (or time yet) to play and change the widgets on each page. I still need to work on that because I do have ideas for different sections.. it is just taking me a while to get there. It is an excellent idea to have.. makes each section different and enticing. I wish more people used that as well.
most of the themes just put a header image and waste that really important space , ( wait !! even I am doing the same )
wdgetizing header area will be a good idea … I want to put the most popular posts there
I often use Wordpress as a simple CMS to maintain smaller websites (5-10 pages + news articles / …).
One thing I’m going to use widgets for myself is to customize the homepage of the website. The problem I’m facing there now is that I’ve to add too much static textboxes to the index.php template. And that the client isn’t able to change the content of them…
Widgetizing these homepage content boxes would be a solution, but even then, I can only offer this to clients who are technically “savy” and know how to handle the widget section of a theme. (They will also need access to this part of the wordpress admin…)
Besides that (maybe not really on topic) is that for the moment I lack the options to disable / enable certain widgets on specific pages. There are plugins who achieve this, but I think it should be default wordpress widget functionality.
Hey Justin,
Well I’ve read your manifesto, and custom fields articles, and feel like I know you a little bit! This quest for knowledge is from the beginning of the WordPress trail, and I’m looking for answers everywhere. To be honest, my head is spinning with jargon that has little meaning still.
As a general question, what direction should I go if I want to really grasp wordpress.
For instance, in reading the codex I find I still don’t understand how to creat new pages without posts on my site.
Thanks for your moment, and welcome back to the US. I know from experience it’s a strange feeling returning here from a very different country after a year away.;)
Hey Justin,
i don´t have an idea of new places for widgets, but i am looking for some idea for creating a social media newsroom on my blog, something like a press section. So this would be another fix site with widgets for social bookmarking, google news summarys, friendfeed-room and so on. how can I do this? I don´t want to change the page-template for all fix sites on my blog… thanks for your answer.
I always wondered why Wordpress themes didn’t have more widgetized areas. Advanced Drupal themes can come with a dozen or more regions where you can add blocks/widgets to completely customize your site. I have seen some Drupal themes with over 20 regions for this.
Some areas for widget consideration:
- mid-content on a CMS style to insert content after a featured article
- one or more footer regions. I did see a Wordpress theme that had three widgetized columns in the footer.
- Above the main content.
- Below the comments.
- Between the content of a page and the comments.
erica stjohn
One thing to really look out for is some of these widget plugins that let you pick and choose what pages the widgets show up on.
dinu
I’m always iffy about widgetizing the header. The reason for this is that you have to account for a lot of different variations when styling the theme. That’s the biggest problem with widget — having to account for all the different possibilities.
cubus
Well, you’re in luck! My next theme has a page template that is completely widgetized.
I’m thinking that we’ll start seeing some of these widget plugins integrated into the WP core in some way in the coming months.
Sat
Shoot me an email. I’ll be happy to point out some great references for you.
Alex Klimm
Stop by my support forums. We can go over different scenarios and lay out code there.
Wayne Luke
Thanks for the feedback on the widgetized sections.
I can’t see any reason for a theme to have more than one footer widget area though. With proper CSS coding, you could easily just use one section to achieve the same goal.
I have previously used widgets for each key section, i.e. header, post content, footer, etc, but I wonder whether widgets are really the best way to make this modular?
I am now your blog’ s follower thanks for this post.
I agree with many of you: widgets for top, bottom and both sides.
But even more important I’d find a widget which enables you to sort your posts, pages and categories, and show and hide the ones you don’t want in the menu and nav bar.
I always install the same 4 plug-ins for these very basic functions, and it would be cool if it would be already build in the widgets.
I agree with Erica above. I like the ability to have a different widget on different pages and also the ability to have different page layouts for different categories and pages. This would help to make the site more customized and not just the same page layout repeated everytime.
Thanks for the posts and all the great repsonses.
Enjoy the article, trying to find a way to add a text widget areas above my posts for a daily thought. if you check out my website http://www.notjustaboringdentist.com, the area labeled Daily thought is a widget I added onto the main index page by validating it in the function area and inserting it where I wnated it into the page. The only thing I can;t seem to figure out how to do is separate it from the top post- if you look, you see it bleeds right into it. I tried altering the CSS, but I obviously don;t know what i am doing there. I created a new section under index and basically copied and pasted code from the sidebar area and changed the wording, but as you can see, no luck in cretaing that gray line. Any ideas?