by Andy
Widget Configuration, RSS, and Free Text
We’ve been getting so many requests for widgets that we’ve hardly had time to code anything! I bit the bullet and turned off my email long enough to update the interface and provide widgets for the most requested features. Now they’re active and I’ll be turning my email back on, for better or for worse…
Anyway, here’s the scoop on the new stuff in your Sidebar Editor panel. Most widgets are now configurable through a little popup window. Almost all widgets let you change their titles now, so we expect you to come up with a better name for your archives than “Archives.” Really.
The two most exciting widgets are Text and RSS. You can have as many as nine of each of these. The Text widget is composed of a title and some text or HTML. Lots of people wanted to put badges and pictures in their sidebars, and while Flash and Javascript are still filtered out, you have a lot more freedom here than ever before.
My favorite new widget, the RSS widget is really simple (hehe) to use but it’s pretty amazing what you can accomplish with it. It’ll handle RSS, ATOM, and who knows what other syndication formats. I’ve set up a bunch of feeds on my blog to give you some ideas: another personal blog of my own, MC Hammer’s blog (to show that I’m cool), my Flickr feed, Dodgeball so you know where I am hanging out, and a bunch of funnies (in case my dry humor doesn’t flip your switches). It’s a good start but I’m sure I missed the very best ones. It’s up to you to show the world what a feed maniac you are!
The first widget geared toward a specific third-party service is our Del.icio.us widget. There will be more of these appearing over time, including the oft-requested Flickr badges.
What else do you want that can’t be done with the RSS widget? Keep sending feedback and we’ll keep tallying it, day and night.
March 10th, 2006 at 11:57 pm
Very cool! I love the del.icio.us widget. I’m still waiting for Simpla to support customizing the sidebar, though.
March 11th, 2006 at 12:32 am
nice!
March 11th, 2006 at 12:42 am
HEy andy very kool and as you said I might have to comewith new nam,es for all the things now
March 11th, 2006 at 12:58 am
Probably one of the best updates yet!
Awesome!
March 11th, 2006 at 1:00 am
As I’ve suggested with the feedback form, Asides would be good! (matt responded to it too)
March 11th, 2006 at 1:33 am
Wonderful stuff.
I tried pasting my Flickr HTML badge into a text box and it did not work.
March 11th, 2006 at 1:51 am
It’s very nice to use.
It is pretty cool how it autosaves the info in the text widget but I think there needs to be some sort of message saying that it does.
March 11th, 2006 at 2:25 am
Very nice, I noticed that the categories widget is still buggy. By default it is shown with parents and children. But when you move it, the categories become one line.
March 11th, 2006 at 3:29 am
Awesome! The RSS widget looks quite useful and the fact that “most widgets are now configurable rocks” as well. Great work.
=^.^=
March 11th, 2006 at 3:37 am
Hemingway doesn’t support these new widgets…..i m so sad…..:~(
But good jobs any way!!!! u guys are soooo efficient!!!!
March 11th, 2006 at 4:25 am
I tried using the Text Widget to put a quote in my sidebar, but the text came
back much bigger than the rest of the text elsewhere in the sidebar so it didn’t look very good. Is there a away to fiddle with the HTML of the text?
March 11th, 2006 at 5:37 am
Love the widget power.
May I suggest a calendar widget for folks who like that sort of thing?
Thanks again. I am increasingly impressed with WP.
March 11th, 2006 at 6:13 am
Once again …. awesome … tnx.
March 11th, 2006 at 6:39 am
I would like a plugin for polls
March 11th, 2006 at 6:58 am
Wow, first you got the “recent comments” - but didn’t work with Hemmingway Theme. Then you got RSS feeds configurations, etc - again, it didn’t work with Hemmingway. And now, FLICKR - I’m excited rather afraid it will never work for Hemmingway Theme.
March 11th, 2006 at 7:19 am
Neat ! Keep up the great work !
March 11th, 2006 at 8:13 am
Great! I like that!!
March 11th, 2006 at 8:41 am
Mick: Nice work!
March 11th, 2006 at 10:10 am
Love it - but can these be added to older themes such as regulus? I don’t want to change theme particularly, but I’d love this extra functionality.
March 11th, 2006 at 11:10 am
the RSS widgets don’t handle the non-english unicode text. any idea when this will be fixed?
March 11th, 2006 at 1:35 pm
Whoa, good work! It would be great to have this option (as a plugin?) for wordpress.org. Now I am torn between moving to local hosting of wordpress to sticking around seeing how efficient you guys are.
Awesomeness, people :]
March 11th, 2006 at 2:58 pm
amazing!! great work!! I love it too. thanks!!!!
March 11th, 2006 at 4:27 pm
Another vote for a “calendar” widget in all themes. Thanks.
March 11th, 2006 at 4:45 pm
Great! still waiting for the widgets to work on the girl in green theme….and of course the calander archives widget….
March 11th, 2006 at 7:21 pm
Is there a Plugin for this rss Stuff out there? This is pretty cool.
March 11th, 2006 at 8:25 pm
I’m totally loving this!
March 11th, 2006 at 8:52 pm
Completely amazing! The new text widget opens up many possibilities. Great job!
March 11th, 2006 at 10:48 pm
Maybe an advertisement or Google AdSense widget?
March 11th, 2006 at 10:50 pm
yeah, um wordpress is cool and all, but WHY don’t you guys have the custom layouts feature! i want to be able to use my OWN layout! thanks! (because all the other ones suckkk)
March 11th, 2006 at 10:54 pm
i love the free text,thank you mr. wordpress admin for this tool
March 12th, 2006 at 12:02 am
[...] Added a link to Flickr. Working on YouTube & Google Video. WordPress.com is getting more and more customisable with its new widgets. WordPress.com really rocks! [...]
March 12th, 2006 at 12:52 am
Thank YOU! This is one i’ve been waiting for.
I can’t wait for flickr…
March 12th, 2006 at 5:58 am
Absolutely cool widgets !!! WordPress.com really rocks !!!
But after you tune this up, originally worked “Recent Commnets” widget has changed its layout in my blog. It’s theme-related, but couldn’t it be neat in any theme? That’ll be perfect ! :p
Can’t wait for “Flickr” widget !!! :PPP
March 12th, 2006 at 6:08 am
Cool. When will they work with Hemingway?
March 12th, 2006 at 6:38 am
Great work, but I’ve noticed when I rename the “Catergories” title, it’ll go back to its default name.
March 12th, 2006 at 7:25 am
Thank you. The only thing I didn’t like about Toni was that I couldn’t include my tagline. Thanks for adding the text widget. It resolves the issue nicely.
March 12th, 2006 at 9:48 am
i’m falling in love with the free text widget and the way it added flavor to my blog. thanks, guys. kudos!
March 12th, 2006 at 10:11 am
It’s possible a widget with the Top Posts?
March 12th, 2006 at 11:34 am
[...] There have been a few recent announcements about the WordPress.com Sidebar Widgets lately, especially from WordPress developer, Andy Skelton, and in the WordPress.com Blog, so what is all the fuss about? [...]
March 12th, 2006 at 12:08 pm
Awesome! What a pity I cant use them on my lovely Regulus template…
March 12th, 2006 at 12:33 pm
I haven’t been able to get RSS feeds to work “Unknown Feed” messages. Could anyone post an example URL that they’ve used and got to work in the RSS widget?
March 12th, 2006 at 4:02 pm
post it in the forums, under rss tag
lovely widgets by the way, very cool, love the text widgets with html capabilities!
March 12th, 2006 at 6:56 pm
Thanks guys! I also tried to place my flickr badge into the text widget but it did not work as well, will we have to wait for the Flickr widget to do that?
March 12th, 2006 at 9:04 pm
Amazing! Would be nice to edit the Rss titles!
Would like a pool widget to!!!
keep up the good work!
March 13th, 2006 at 5:39 am
Hi, I cannot seem to add HTML or javascript to the sidebar. How can I do this?
March 13th, 2006 at 10:36 am
Excellent work Andy… very impressive! I’ve been looking forward to this for a while now, and it looks like its everything we wanted! Thanks.
March 13th, 2006 at 2:44 pm
Very neat! Thanks for all the good work!! And…. +1 vote from me for the Flickr widget!
March 13th, 2006 at 5:40 pm
[...] Das größte Manko war für die Meisten bisher, dass man die Themes nicht bearbeiten konnte, und das man keine eigenen Plugins reinstecken konnte. Das hat gute Gründe, die aber nicht immer einfach zu vermitteln sind. Aber die wp.com Macher suchten nach Wegen, diesem Dilemma zu entkommen. Ihr neuestes Spielzeug sind die Widgets. Damit kann man sich die Seitenleiste selbst zusammenstellen. Dazu hat man verschiedene Module, die man beliebig sortieren und teilweise auch beliebig benennen kann. [...]
March 13th, 2006 at 7:13 pm
How do I get these widgets? I host my own wordpress installation, is there a plugin I need to install or is it just certain themes?
March 13th, 2006 at 10:01 pm
Calendar, pretty please!
(I admit that I’m a bit of a geek, but I have NO clue what that RSS stuff is used for. And I’m pretty sure none of my friends or readers know either. I blog because of the writing part, not because of the crazy techie stuff. I’m guessing I’m in a minority here.)
March 14th, 2006 at 2:44 am
I love the fact that I don’t have to learn any more code to tweak my sidebar. A blog shouldn’t be that elitist. Thanks!
March 14th, 2006 at 4:04 am
Way to go with the widgets… It is really cool to have all this customization.
March 14th, 2006 at 6:59 am
It seems RSS widget doesn’t support UTF-8 encoded feeds - I see a garbage instead of non-english characters.
March 14th, 2006 at 7:09 am
I think it is a good idea to have del.icio.us small icon in bookmarks widget. Or it may be even better to allow users attach their custom icons to every widget header (may be just to allow HTML in headers).
March 14th, 2006 at 5:47 pm
[...] For more information check out the WordPress.com blog. [...]
March 15th, 2006 at 12:49 am
You should add the option to edit all the titles of the Widgets, this way we are a step closer to localization.
For example, in my blog I’d wanted to translate Recent Posts, at least the other ones have been updated.
March 15th, 2006 at 6:50 pm
Is adSense widget in the works?
March 16th, 2006 at 9:50 am
I added the Flickr Zeitgeist code into to my sidebar last night and it worked fine in Firefox but then when I came into work today and checked my page it is not displaying in IE, the code is still there. I’m very new to all of this.
March 16th, 2006 at 9:36 pm
I would quite like the option for people to be able to specify the exact colour that users wish to use for backgrounds and text.
For example with Hemingway, I would love to change the black to a dark grey.
March 17th, 2006 at 7:23 am
good deal
March 17th, 2006 at 6:02 pm
nice and easy to use even for a newbie like me. is there a widget that we can put pictures so that everyone can see?
March 18th, 2006 at 1:41 pm
Which theme would you like Chrono Tron to use?
WordPress.com Blog Hosting is just becoming better and better by the day. With tons of new features (like Widgets), I’ve really stopped thinking of shifting over to a hosted blog. The only thing that I’d like here is some Javascript and dom…
March 25th, 2006 at 12:09 pm
RSS widget is cool, but I can not rename its Title, same goes for Recent Posts widget.
March 28th, 2006 at 10:46 am
The sidebareditorthing is cool! What about an option to put a picture in the sidebar?
March 30th, 2006 at 2:25 pm
WordPress Widget Plugin
Want to change your WordPress sidebar but don’t wanna edit any code? The WordPress Widgets Plugin is just what you’re looking for.
It made it’s debut on WordPress.com a few months ago and is now being released for public consumption….
April 2nd, 2006 at 10:31 am
Hi, any chance of integrating the Google Reader Feeds with WordPress? Or is it already available? I would love to share my starred items with my buddies. Thanks.
April 5th, 2006 at 10:21 pm
[...] HacÃa semanas que se venÃa hablando de los Widgets para WordPress en distintos blogs relacionados con el CMS y de su implementación en el servicio de wordpress.com. [...]
April 10th, 2006 at 12:09 am
[...] They have a RSS feed for things you mark as "favorites" so I've added that to my sidebar here using the nifty new widget stuff. [...]
April 10th, 2006 at 2:42 am
the widgets are very cool. are they available to other templates than just the default?
April 30th, 2006 at 6:42 pm
[...] Adding Adsense code to your sidebar using a WordPress widget is a piece of cake. In fact, it’s built in. Use the text widget, paste in your Google Adsense code in the text box, give the text widget a title, save the sidebar, and you’re good to go. [...]
April 6th, 2007 at 12:21 am
[...] Consume them however you want: in your feed reader… or embed them in your blog like we like to do using the WordPress Sidebar RSS widget… [...]
April 21st, 2007 at 8:26 pm
can I embed an AD banner on my RSS widget?