To install the image widget plugin:

1.  Log into your website at www.yourwebsite.com/wp-admin

2.  Go to the Plugins tab on the left, and click on “Add New”.

3.  In the search bar, type “Image Widget”

4.  These results will show – we’re looking for the plugin by Shane and Peter, Inc.

5.  Click “install now”.   When prompted, click on “Activate Plugin”.

To use the image widget plugin:

1.  Go to the Appearance tab, and click on “Widgets” sub-tab.

2.  Drag the Image Widget widget from the left Available Widgets section to the desired sidebar and slide it into the desired location.

3.  This is the image widget when it is open:

4.  Upload the image by clicking the “Add Image” link.

5.  Assign the widget a title or delete the title if it isn’t necessary.

6.  Optional: caption, open in a new page.

7.  Insert a link if your widget is linking to somewhere when clicked.

8.  For better SEO, assign an alternate text for robots and audible browsers.

9.  Width and height will allow your page to load faster.

10.  And you can set the alignment with a simple drop-down selection.

I adore this plugin!  If you use this and want to support the ongoing development, I’m sure a small donation to the developers would be appreciated!

Questions?  Want to see more plugins posted here?  Let me know in the comments.

I had an interesting question from a client last night, wondering how come her gorgeous sidebars disappeared when she put widgets in them. Here’s the scoop:

Sidebars: Most of the time, the theme you are using gives you two options. First, you can just leave the sidebars without widgets and the default stuff will show up. Usually Categories, Archives by month, Search, Pages, and Meta Data.  And the second option is to use Widgets.

To use the default sidebars:

1. In your administration panels, go to [Appearance] -> [Widgets].
2. Remove all widgets from within each sidebar.
3. Start with the first sidebar on the right hand side of the screen, click on the down arrow to expand the panel.
4. If there are boxes / widgets in that sidebar, click on [remove].  That one box will disappear.
5. Continue until all the boxes are gone.
6. The sidebar with no widgets will display the default ones.

Widgets: Essentially these are little pieces of code. Developers know what pieces of code do what, and where they should go. So you don’t even have to cut and paste these babies. They’re wrapped with a cute bow, and tagged, “Plugins.”

Some math for you:

Widgets: those pieces of code that come within your WordPress Download.  Let’s call them “W”. Sounds mathematical, no?

Plugins: those pieces of code that do NOT come with your initial Download. We’ll call these “P”.

To use Widgets: (W)

1. In your admin panels, go to [appearance] -> [widgets].
2. Select the first sidebar shown on the right hand side of the screen.
3. Now drag and drop the boxes from the left over to the right. I know! Drag & Drop, right? Doesn’t it make you want to kiss those ppl at WordPress? Me too. Oh.  Just me?
   
4. Sometimes there is an option or two to configure within the widget.  When you have entered the title and/or other options, click on “Save”.
5. If you have more than one sidebar, just follow these steps to use widgets in each and every one of them. Use as many or as little as you like.

To use Plugins: (P)

We will go through this in depth later, I think that Heather has already addressed a couple of plugin must-haves. But for now, you need to know that the number of widgets that you have in that left column is only a fraction of what is available. There is a whole ‘nother geekier world of plugin-developers. They write those beautiful packages. To find out what I’m talking about, go to the Plugin Repository and search for “widgets”. All those plugins can be added to your sidebar widget list! (W – did you remember?)

You can add plugins from within the Plugins panel, “Add New”; where you can search for a plugin in the official repository or you can upload one from your computer.  And unless you are writing plugins yourself, you would have downloaded that plugin from the web at some point.  CAUTION: only use plugins that you trust!!

Now, you know the first letter of both Plugins and Widgets. That’s quite mathy of you.

Here are the subscription options and displays for some of the best sites out there:

Copyblogger:

This is my favorite title for a subscription feed “email updates” – how could you mistake that?   Note, that copyblogger’s audience is primarily bloggers, and yet- why use geekeze like rss & feed when you don’t have to?

He also includes the ever appropriate call to action: “Enter your e-mail:”

Problogger:

Notice the “What is RSS?” link, and a simple “subscribe via email: __________” form.  Note also, that this blog with its 123K readers(!) is targeted at internet-savvy readers!!

WPHacks.com

Notice the explicit intructions: “Enter your email address…” and the title (which has NO mention of the word, “subscribe”): “receive automatic updates via email:” Love this one!

The huffington post:

The biggest(?) blog of all time, does NOT use the word, “subscribe”  when describing their RSS feed!! How about the word, “alert” instead?

How do our Mom Bloggers do it?

5 Minutes for Mom uses “Email Updates” plus explicit instructions to enter email address in the box provided.

Problogger (where I get a fair bit of information)also suggests that we not only make it clear what the feed is but that it is also free!

So there ya have it, a little weekend inspiration to make those subscription forms more accessible to your readers!

• text widgets

• HTML editor

• theme Editor

So, if you use those three areas of your blog, you need to know a thing or two about HTML.  Remember – whatever you put in those areas will go directly to the web – it will not get filtered and published by your friendly WordPress engine.   Now, unless you know HTML, you really should NOT be using the html editor in the add-new post screen.  And unless you know css AND html, you should not be tweaking your theme through the theme editor.

The text widgets are something that all of us use to one extent or another to put stuff in our sidebars.  We use it for our RSS / feed subscribe buttons, for our twitter buttons, and for any other image or text that we want to put in there.  Unfortunately, those text widgets will break your blog.  Let’s go through the <p> tag to use it properly, and prevent a mishap with an unruly sidebar.

Lesson #1: the <p> tag

If you’ve used a word processor, you know that if you press <enter> key on your keyboard, you get what is called a “hard return”.  This creates the space between paragraphs.  If you press the <shift> and <enter> keys, you get a soft return (on a mac, I believe it is <ctrl> and <enter>).  It just moves the curser to the next line without an extra line.

The <p> tag stands for “paragraph” and is used in HTML to create a hard return. If your theme is styled correctly, it will create a space between your paragraphs.  To USE html tags, you need to know one thing: What you start, you must finish, without exception.  This is especially true if your theme is written in xhtml.  If you open a paragraph with <p> then you must close it with a </p>.

Note: If you are typing away and press “enter” and get a new paragraph on your screen – that is a word processor type of function.  HTML is NOT a word processor.  If you want a new paragraph, you have to wrap your text in <p> </p> tags.

For example:

<P> This is my short paragraph. I am using some shortcuts to show you how to write a paragraph.  For some editors, I really should code the punctuation instead of typing it like I am now. </p>

If I did not use the closing </p> tag, then the internet would assume that everything for the rest of that page was in the same paragraph.  So if you forget to close your sidebar <p> tags, then your sidebar MAY swing to an unexpected position.  If you want to be sure that you don’t get weird sections all over your page, be sure to close the html tags that you use.

I’ve also seen some people use <p> like a page break or section break.  This is the WRONG use for it.  When some web browsers are reading this type of html it will read it wrong, and your page could be read or displayed with weird sections.

This post is part of a series on Desperately Seeking WordPress called, “Save the Sidebar!”  Click here to go to the beginning of the series:

We’ll cover how to create section breaks and page breaks in our next tutorial:  Sidebar Fix #2: the <br> tag.