Introduction
Widgets are used to customize content that can be displayed on all the pages of the blog or website using WordPress. Widgets are often used for things like RSS links or just categories. Most times Widgets are used to display relevant things on the sidebar.
How it works with Blogger!
Widgets are very useful when it comes to WordPress and they are very similar to Gadgets which can be added with Blogger.com. While using Blogger.com we might have used various ‘Gadgets‘ to add things like Blog lists, pages, search box, followers, HTML/JavaScript. It can be done by simply clicking on Add a Gadget link as shown in the image below.
How it works with WordPress!
Widgets are very useful in WordPress themes, like Blogger.com has with the name Gadgets. In Blogger.com you might use it to add various things like “blog lists”, “pages”, “search box”, “followers”, “Text”, some HTML/JavaScript by clicking on Add a Gadget link (see the image). Similarly instead of gadgets we have Widgets with WordPress.
WordPress provides us with some default widgets with the default theme. (At this moment Twenty Ten is the default theme with WordPress 3.0 and onwards)
How do we add and manage widgets in WordPress?
- Click on Widgets option under Appearance menu.
- You will enter in Widgets panel area where you can find many useful widgets.
- When you install some Themes and Plugins you may get some extra Widgets related to that particular theme design. Widgets are very easy to handle. Just drag and drop a widget wherever you want.
- Mostly widgets are added in the sidebar of the theme.
Summary
Just like Blogger.com has gadgets, WordPress has widgets. They work in pretty much the same way and the difference is WordPress always has some default widgets activated. With WordPress some plugins when activated show up more widgets as active.