Display Widgets – Play Hide and Seek with WordPress

Have you ever wanted to vary what widgets you show on different pages of your website? Well now your dreams have come true with Display Widgets Plugin. This week while working on a client’s website, I came across this awesome plugin to help customize content on their website. It really is a useful widget controller that anyone can use with WordPress to make their content more flexible. What widget should I place on my about page? Just imagine the possibilities! Finished imagining? Let’s take a look.

What is Display Widgets Plugin?

Display Widgets is a plugin to help you hide and show widgets, depending on the page, post, category or user. Not only that, but it’s a way to customize the content of your sidebar without any programming. It is actually a very simple plugin, but it adds a whole lot of power to your site. But remember, with great power, comes great responsibility! (think I heard that in a movie) Here are some example of the possible uses:

1. Include or exclude certain widgets on a specific post
2. Showing a particular opt-in form for a specific category of post
3. Different kinds of ads for different kinds of pages (or even none for standard pages)?

The widget world is your oyster!

How does the Display Widgets Plugin work?

So now you are rubbing your hands together just imagining the ways you can pump your site! Don’t worry, it is not so challenging to use this plugin – your dreams won’t be shattered by the tech side of things. That’s for sure Go crazy in fact. But not so crazy you won’t understand what you did with your widgets. Presuming you have the plugin installed… Here is how it works:

1. Goto the widgets section

I presume you know where that is? No you don’t need Google maps – it’s under the Appearance Menu. Ok, still with me.

2. Configure your widgets

Open up a widget on the right hand side by clicking on the little down arrow. Once you have that, this is what you will see (more or less, you have different pages, categories etc) So here are the kinds of things you can configure. Show Widget for Users: This drop down menu can be used to restrict widgets based on whether the user is logged in or not. The exact options are:

• Everyone
• Logged-in Users
• Logged-out Users

Use: This one is great for having special widgets for people with access to your blog (or alternatively showing less widgets for logged in users) It can also hide or show widgets based on specific properties of a page or post like:

• Page Type
• Specific Pages (by name)
• Post Categories
• Specific Posts (by id)

This is really where the specific fun begins with tweaking your content based on pages and posts. That is all there is to it! Simple huh.

Final Words

This plugin is really a ripper (as we say Down Under!). It can make your website very flexible and deliver targeted content to your readers – all without programming! (it’s putting me out of work) It is up to you what you do with it, but I recommend giving it a chance and seeing what benefits it can bring you and your beloved site. Photo credit: davehat via photopin cc