Widgets
Widgets allow you to add customizable content to different sections of your website. Widgets can be added to sidebars. Typically, sidebars can be found on the right or left of your website. Intensity also defines a few other “sidebar” areas you can use to add widgets to your site. Some of these areas include the footer, header, and before or after the content of your page. Intensity lets you add an unlimited number of sidebars that can be customized on a per page basis as needed.
Widgets vs Sidebars
It is important to understand the difference between the widgets and sidebars.
Widgets are small blocks of content that can be added to the sidebars. WordPress comes with several built-in widgets such as: text block, archives, calendar, categories, meta, recent posts, etc. The widgets can be added to your sidebars on the Appearance Widgets page. The Intense plugin also comes bundled with several widgets such as: Ads, Facebook Page, Gallery, Snippet, Social Icons, Template, and Twitter. To use these widgets, they first need to be enabled in the Settings Intense Widgets settings tab.
Sidebars are areas on the website that hold widgets. Often sidebars are referred to as widget sections because they have been extended to appear in more areas than just the sidebars. Intensity includes several pre-defined widget sidebars. Generally you will add the widgets to these sidebars and they will appear throughout your site. You can also customize these on a per page basis by creating your own sidebar and using the meta options to set which sidebar will show instead of the default.
Sidebar Areas
| Sidebar | Description |
|---|---|
| Right | The right most sidebar. It can be configured to appear on the right or the left of the screen but will always appear to the right of the left sidebar. |
| Left | The left most sidebar. It can be configured to appear on the right or the left of the screen but will always appear to the left of the right sidebar. |
| Before Content | This sidebar will show before the content of the page or post. It can be used for displaying ads, notices, or even creating entire pages. |
| After Content | This sidebar will show after the content of the page or post. It can be used for displaying ads, notices, or even creating entire pages. |
| Header – 1 | Some of the header templates allow for showing widgets. This sidebar will be the first within this type of header template. |
| Header – 2 | Some of the header templates allow for showing widgets. This sidebar will be the second within this type of header template. |
| Header – 3 | Some of the header templates allow for showing widgets. This sidebar will be the third within this type of header template. |
| Header – 4 | Some of the header templates allow for showing widgets. This sidebar will be the fourth within this type of header template. |
| Footer – 1 | Some of the footer templates allow for showing widgets. This sidebar will be the first within this type of footer template. |
| Footer – 2 | Some of the footer templates allow for showing widgets. This sidebar will be the second within this type of footer template. |
| Footer – 3 | Some of the footer templates allow for showing widgets. This sidebar will be the third within this type of footer template. |
| Footer – 4 | Some of the footer templates allow for showing widgets. This sidebar will be the fourth within this type of footer template. |
| Error 404 – 1 | The 404 error page allows for showing widgets. This can often be useful for making better use of your error page to capture the attention of your users. This is the first sidebar that will show on the error page. |
| Error 404 – 2 | The 404 error page allows for showing widgets. This can often be useful for making better use of your error page to capture the attention of your users. This is the second sidebar that will show on the error page. |
| Error 404 – 3 | The 404 error page allows for showing widgets. This can often be useful for making better use of your error page to capture the attention of your users. This is the third sidebar that will show on the error page. |
| Error 404 – 4 | The 404 error page allows for showing widgets. This can often be useful for making better use of your error page to capture the attention of your users. This is the fourth sidebar that will show on the error page. |
Creating Sidebars
If you want to create a different sidebar on a specific page or post, you can easily do so using the SMK Sidebar Generator plugin that is included with Intensity. Sidebars are created on the Appearance Sidebar Generator page. After they are created and you have added widgets to them, you can set the new sidebars to show within the Sidebar Options Tab or within the page/post meta options.