Widgets on Pages

Widgets are the units of content that you typically see in WordPress sidebars. What if you want to use one of these widget-only tools someplace other than in your sidebar? The [wms_widgetized_area] shortcode allows you to stick a “sidebar” inside of a page or post, so you can place widgets in the main content area of your site.

Creating the shortcode

To use the shortcode builder interface, you will need to have the Williams Shortcode Builder plugin activated, and be using the visual editor.

To create the [wms_widgetized_area] shortcode:

  1. Place your cursor in the visual editor where you’d like the widget container to appear.
  2. Click on the “Shortcodes” button, located in the 2nd row of your visual editor’s toolbar (outlined in orange below). If you only see 1 row of tools, click on the kitchen sink (outlined in green below) to reveal the 2nd row.
  3. Select “Widgetized Area”, outlined in red below.

sc-menu-widgetized

Fill out the form in the dialog popup box, shown below.

sc-dialog-widgetized

Existing widgetized areas

If you want to use a widgetized area that already exists, such as the Homepage Widget Area (it appears at the top of your homepage), select it from the pulldown menu.

New widgetized area

If you want to create a new widget holder, enter a name for it. The widget holder will start out empty. See the adding widgets section below for adding content to it.

Clicking “OK” will insert the shortcode into the visual editor, and create the new widgetized area, if one was requested.

Editing the shortcode

In the editor (in both visual and text modes), the shortcode will look something like this:
[wms_widgetized_area sidebar="homepage-widget-area"]

You can edit the shortcode attributes (the values inside the quotes above) directly, or you can delete the shortcode, and create a new one using the shortcode builder tool again.

Use this tool to create a space where you can drop widgets in your page/post.

Adding widgets

dashboard-widget-newIn the Appearance -> Widgets section of your dashboard (menu shown right), you’ll see a new sidebar at the bottom of the list, named whatever you entered into the popup window (see “My New Sidebar below). You can drag any number of widgets into your new sidebar, and order them how you like. The sidebar contents will appear on all pages/posts that contain the shortcode for this widgetized area.

Widgetized areas created by the shortcode builder are labelled “Williams custom sidebar.” You can create as many of these extra sidebars as you’d like, and if you stop using one, just click the “Delete” link.

sc-widget-admin