To download the Plugin, please read the instructions then go to the bottom of this post and click the download button.
It’s often nice to be able to create a profile page or similar, and to display it in a sidebar. You get to use the visual editor, and you don’t necessarily need admin access. Similarly, you avoid the issue of having to work with the much more difficult text widget.
Downsides include that the theme may not have CSS styles properly set, so for example a captioned image may not display correctly. You should test this widget with your theme, across several browsers, before using it on a critical live site.
Installing the Plugin
You should use either use the WordPress built-in plugin installation process, or download the zip file of the plugin, unzip it, and copy it into your wp-content/plugins folder.
Activating the Plugin
Sign in to the back-end of your WordPress administration (usually your site’s main address plus /wp-admin ) and navigate to Appearance | Plugins | Installed.
Activating the Plugin, 2
In the main part of the Manage Plugins page, you should now see the Spectacu.la Page Widget in grey. Click on the activate text to activate the widget. Once activated the line for the plugin will change to white.
Using the Widget
We’re going to add a box to the top right of our WordPress site, showing the About page with an image.
Setting up Widgets
Navigate to Appearance | Widgets. In this panel you can control the widgets displayed on your site. You may need to add the Search, Pages, Archives and Categories widgets if you’re on a new install of WordPress. In this example they are already set up.
Drag the Spectacu.la Page Widget across as shown above. Be aware that it may be in a different position to that shown above.
Configuring the Widget
This is a powerful widget with a lot of options:
1. The page to show in the widget
2. Whether or not to show the title of the page
3. You can link to the source page - especially useful if you’re using the excerpt functionality
4. You can override the title and set something of your own
5. You can use an excerpt instead of the full content. The excerpt will be auto-generated unless you use Westi’s PJW Page Excerpt plugin which will allow you to create your own excerpt should you wish.
6. You may wish to hide this page from your site’s normal navigation. This may not work with some themes and plugins which don’t use conventional approaches to listing pages.
Set the options as in the image above, then click save.
Now let’s take a look at what’s happened.
The Result
As you can see, the sidebar now contains the entire content of the page, and the page has been removed from the navigation. Edit the post, and add a thumbnail aligned to the right…
With an Image
As you can see, there isn’t much space for even a thumbnail in this theme’s sidebar, but don’t let that put you off, you can change the size easily in WordPress, although that’s a different lesson. Have you seen our WordPress User Guides?
With a Smaller Image
And there he is - all right-sized and everything. Advanced WordPress users and designers will be able to make considerable use of this plugin, and basic users should be able to easily create well formatted and attractive sidebar content. If you have feedback on this plugin, feel free to comment here. If you need support, or simply wish to encourage us to release more plugins then you’ll need to join the (very reasonably priced) club.
Looks like a great little plugin. Well done guys.
One suggestion: When you have selected the page to display. Change the title in the widget list to include the page title (or at least some of it). If you use more than one, it becomes easier to manage.
e.g “Spectacu.la page widget” -> “Page : About”. Use the alternative title if the user types one.
In fact, do you need ‘widget’ at all? We’re on the widget page we know it’s a widget!
Thanks for the feedback and praise Mike - I’ll add that suggestion to the list for the next release - it makes plenty of sense.