Creation of widgets. Creating WordPress Widgets

It is believed that the main task of a webmaster is to attract an audience of users. But it is not so. You can attract as many audiences as you like, but if they are not loyal, the conversion results will be disappointing. To increase user activity when interacting with the site, it is worth making a widget for it.

About how many different widgets we need...

If you look at the dictionary, it turns out that a widget is a small graphic application, embedded in the user interface of a browser or website, and displaying some information from some location. That is why they can be very diverse. When it comes to creating a widget for a website, this usually means one of three graphical applications:

Well, let's figure out how to create each of these widgets - and why you need them in the first place.

Creating a widget for Visual Bookmarks (for Wordpress and other engines)

Visual bookmarking service from Yandex in Lately is becoming more and more popular. It is comfortable, beautiful and functional. Visual bookmarks are built into browsers based on the Chromium engine from the corresponding store, and are also included in Yandex.Browser right out of the box.

Visually, this service is a board with links to sites. If you add a link to your own web page, in the vast majority of cases it will look incredibly dull - just Domain name on a colored background.

It only takes a little effort to make it more attractive to users. Namely, to “do some magic” with the Tableau API.

But first it is required create a logo site. The picture must comply with the following rules:

• Format.PNG;
• Size 150x60 pixels;
• Transparent background.

The widget itself is written in XML. Type the following code in notepad:

“version”: “1.0”,

"api_version": 1.

“logo”: “http://your_site_domain/logo_file_address/logo_file_name.png”,

“color”: “#desired_color_number_in_HEX”,

The next step is to do a little magic with PHP. Well, or HTML - depending on what language the site engine is written in. If the header is in header.php, then changes are made to this file. And if in some other place, the following line must be entered there, accordingly.

And here is the code to enable it:

This code must be included in the header - that is, between the opening and closing HTML tags .

The widget in the Visual Bookmarks Board is updated automatically. But not instantly. Coding enthusiasts can even make it updateable by displaying various notifications.

Website widget for the Yandex home page

Many people know that the main page search engine Yandex is being configured. And you can place a widget of your site on it - so that users can find out updates without going to the web page itself. This will be a great advantage, as it will reduce bounce statistics and increase your project’s search engine rankings.

Create a widget for the site not difficult. You don't even need to learn HTML! This widget requires that the site have an RSS feed. U Wordpress engine it is available by default and is located at the following address:

http://domain/feed

But for other engines you will need to create it yourself.

So, the widget for Yandex is done in two simple steps:

1. Go to http://wdgt.yandex.ru/widgets and click on the “Create widget” button;
2. Fill in the panels with the widget name, description, picture and RSS feed address.

This widget can also be placed on your website - on a sidebar, for example, or in a pop-up window.

Facebook widget

integrated into everyday life modern man. True, in “our latitudes” the most common are “VK” and “Odnoklassniki”. However, Facebook the best place to promote a website that specifically offers any goods or services.

Why? The reason here is simple. It is on Facebook that the easiest way is to organize viral promotion of content among the “intellectual elite.” Various professionals in various fields prefer to use this particular social network, which means that it is easiest to create a loyal, “thinking” audience from which you can even glean some new information.

Facebook developers are well aware that owners information portals prefer to use their social network, and therefore greatly simplify the process of creating and posting widgets.

So here she is step-by-step instruction About, how to create a widget for a website. It just assumes that your site - or company - already has a corresponding Facebook page created by someone who also has a Facebook account:

1. You need to log in on behalf of this person (log in using his username and password) and click the “Edit profile” button on home page profile;
2. Scroll to the bottom of the page and open “Developers”;
3. On the page that opens, find the Sharing button, accompanied by the Like sign, and boldly click on it;
4. Then you need to select “Social plugins”;
5. Find Like Box;
6. The widget settings page will open, where you can set its dimensions, color scheme, content and visual component;
7. Then, by clicking the Get Code button, you can get the code by selecting the markup language that is most compatible with the site engine.

Widget for Wordpress

Now there are a couple of little things left - place the widget on the site. For the most popular engine - Wordpress - this will require adding code in two different places. The first is the footer. A JAVA script is added there that defines the functionality of the widget.

The second is the place where the widget is directly placed, for example, a sidebar. There you need to copy the CSS code with the div block in which the link to the script is located.

For other engines, including self-written or static ones– created in pure HTML and characterized by a very complex procedure for adding content – ​​a slightly different technique is used. However, in these cases it is easier to contact the site creator than to try to figure out the intricacies of the code yourself.

Copyright © 2016 "Design ONE"

Widget is a small application that can be installed on a web page. This review article contains instructions to help you add such an application to your site.

Widget, also called a web gadget, fragment, portlet, etc., is an element GUI user that provides information and allows the user to interact with the application. For example, it can be used to allow users to play interactive games, and add and change website content. Embedding these closed-loop codes on a web page, blog or website social network can make them more interactive, as personal content can be turned into web applications that can be used on any site - to the benefit of you and your visitors.

Where do widgets for websites come from?

If you want to put a web gadget on your website, blog or on your profile on any social media website, you must first find such applications. There are some sites that allow users to create such applications based on their own database. You can simply paste the code and place it on your site. You can find them in widget directories such as 101widgets.com (http://101widgets.com/) or Babywonder.ru (http://widgets.babywonder.ru/) or create them using the Widget editor (a special Internet service For self-creation widgets with a personal touch).

How to make a widget

In addition to ready-made widgets, there are services that realize your creative potential, providing the opportunity to create a widget yourself. For example, you can easily create a slide show block with selected pictures or a practical display of any resource. It is the second case that will be discussed below...

First of all, you should look for sites that allow users to make a web gadget. Surf the Internet and go to any of these sites. On the web service page, find the “Create” or “Make” button (it is possible that the Internet service will be in English, so be guided by the visual display of the elements). You must click on this button. Now the next step, following the prompts of the setup wizard, which will ask you to enter the RSS feed URL (address of the RSS feed of the website) into the field, paste the previously copied feed address (for example, for blogs on WordPress, it looks like this “”). After that, click on the “Continue” button. To select the background color, you can use the color selector. Once the color selection is made, you can name the web gadget by entering a name in the text field and combine it. Then click on “Save widget” to get the web application.

Good day to all readers of the blog site! Not long ago, one of my friends asked me to understand the content of Yandex widgets, including the visual bookmarks widget in Yandex Browser. Namely, he wanted to change the standard widget in visual bookmarks to his own, fortunately, the possibilities for this were provided by the Tableau API from Yandex. This idea seemed interesting to me, and I got to work.

I didn’t see any practical value in this, except that regular visitors to your site, having become accustomed to its logo, will recognize it faster and, perhaps, install your site in visual bookmarks their browsers. And, of course, this will amuse your vanity and pride - the site widget in all (almost all) browsers!

I installed the widget just yesterday, and as of today it has only been updated in Mozilla and Firefox. Perhaps other browsers require more time, or you just need to clear the cache several times, which I don’t want to do yet - I have a lot of different useful things hidden in the cache.

For those who have not yet understood what we are talking about, I will show you a standard picture of visual bookmarks in Yandex Browser:

This is what standard website widgets that you save in visual bookmarks look like. Not very beautiful, but quite informative - by the icon and site address you can find out the resource you need. The new widget looks a little more beautiful, which in itself will be memorable against the background of almost identical standard widgets. Well, for example, like this:

It was this picture that I put yesterday instead of the standard one at the client’s request. It’s immediately clear what we’re talking about, and the logo reminds us of something, doesn’t it? The quality of the USSR is what I wanted to say with this logo. Now such a picture will be seen by everyone who wants to leave this site in their visual bookmarks. I think you will be interested in how you can achieve this result. This is not at all difficult (by my standards), and I will describe all the steps in as much detail as possible.

How to change the widget to your own

So, as I already said, users with browsers that have visual bookmarks functionality will be able to see your new widget. This is Mozilla, Yandex Browser, Google Chrome, Internet Explorer, of course (yes, you can also install visual bookmarks in it, although they are not optional), and several more little-known browsers. This is done using the Tablo API, and you can find instructions from Yandex, but I will try to explain everything in my own words.

Therefore, no matter what browser you use, this will be useful to you in terms of attracting visitors to the site. What can you change in this widget?

1. You can change the background of the widget for the site to any one.
2. You can insert your logo - it must be in PNG format, have a size of 150x60 px and must be with transparent background.
3. You can also display icons for different notifications, but I didn't do that. More precisely, I tried, but everything turns out to be too small, unpleasant to look at and vague in the overall mass.

To make your widget, you will need to create new file with the name manifest and the extension json. That is, the manifest.json file. You will need to put it in the root of the site - this is where your robots.txt is located, and fill it with the following code:

( "version": "1.0", "api_version": 1, "layout": ( "logo": "http://yoursite.ru/wp-content/themes/theme/images/logo.png", "color ": "#ssssss", "show_title": false ) )

And this file is connected to your site very simply - in the header.php file of your theme template, between the tags And you need to insert the following line:

Now about what the manifest.json file code contains:

1. version - widget version. Here you can indicate any number or number, even the year of your birth. This will just indicate the version of the widget.
2. api_version - number API versions Scoreboard. Currently there is only version 1.
3. logo - the absolute (that is, complete) address where your image is located. I have already outlined the requirements for the logo above.
4. color - widget background color, since the logo must have a transparent background.
5. show_title - displays the site title. You can specify either false - do not show, or true - show. If the title is too long (as in my example), then it is better not to display it - it will look clumsy. That’s why I immediately drew the title in the logo.

It’s better for you to read about notification settings in the instructions, the link to which I gave above, and if you are not good at programming, it’s better to leave everything as it is - your widget will be beautiful anyway. The new widget on Yandex Tableau will be updated automatically, but after certain time, and after how long - I was never able to establish.

Let's assume that after 12 hours - I made the widget in the evening, and in the morning it was already in Mozilla's bookmarks. In Yandex Browser it was also updated only in the morning. But to make sure your new widget is working, you don’t have to wait that long. There is a quick way.

Just type in address bar in Yandex Browser (this trick will not work in other browsers - I tried it) the address chrome://tableau-widget and copy the address of your new manifest.json file into the address field that opens, then click the “Check” button:

If everything in the file is correct, you will see the signature “The widget manifest is correct.” You can also immediately try to add the site to your visual bookmarks - if it was not there before, the new widget will appear immediately, and if it was already present in your bookmarks, try clearing the cache several times, perhaps the widget will be updated immediately. But I had to wait several hours.

By at least, although I am not a designer, my friend was pleased with this widget, and he was satisfied - there is a logo, and the site’s header is present, and the color scheme is observed, almost like on the site. So go for it - it’s a little work, but the result, as they say, is on your face 😎 . And see you in new publications!

AppWidget, or simply “widget” is one of the most impressive and convenient elements user interface V operating system Android that can be added to your desktop for quick access to certain functions of the corresponding application. In this article we will figure out how to create your own widget.

What is a widget structurally? A widget is needed to display certain information related to the application to which it belongs, or to quickly interact with this application directly through the desktop. The simplest example is a clock on a desktop. Naturally, widgets can be easily added or removed from desktops.

High-quality widgets significantly optimize interaction with the device. Moreover, very often the most convenient widgets take up the least space on the desktop, and at the same time are the most informative. Almost any user will try to place on the desktop of his Android gadget maximum amount information, and important point is that space is limited.

Let's start creating the widget with the design. Good, Google company provided very useful UI Guidelines for developers software, which describes in detail the design process and the basic principles of ergonomics. There is also a separate official instructions for creating widgets, which can be found at the link: http://developer.android.com/guide/practices/ui_guidelines/widget_design.html.

A widget that occupies one “cell” on the desktop has a resolution of 80x100 pixels, respectively, to create an oblong widget 4 cells long and one cell high, you need, respectively, 320x100 pixels. We will take this size as the basis for the widget we create.

Now the widget needs to be drawn. In principle, a widget may well not have any graphic part, and display only text or controls, without a background or frame, but, naturally, a beautiful and pleasing to the eye widget simply must have a high-quality design. So let's draw the background. Let's take the background from the above-mentioned UI Guideline as a basis. Open the template available to us in Photoshop or another graphic editor and do whatever we want, after which we save the resulting image in .png format. The format we need is PNG-24, with 8-bit color and a transparent background. So the basis for our widget is ready.

Now let's move on to creating the software part. The widget may not have a software part. Simply put, it will be in the add widgets menu, but not in the main application menu. We will create exactly this type of widget. We create new project, and for convenience we call it so that the main class is named widget.java.

Editing AndroidManifest. xml. We declare our widget:

package="com.example.widget"

android:versionCode=”1″

android:versionName=”1.0″>

android:resource=”@xml/widget_info” />

Now let's edit widget.java. Here it is necessary to describe how the widget will react to various conditions. The AppWidgetProvider class has the following methods:

onUpdate – the method is called when the widget is created, as well as after a specified time. The time is set in the configuration file of this widget. Note that it is used most often.

onDeleted – the method is executed when a widget is deleted from the desktop.

onEnabled – the method is called when the widget is activated for the first time. But if another exactly the same widget is added, this method is no longer executed.

onDisabled – the method is executed when the last copy of the widget is deleted from the desktop. Accordingly, this method is the reverse of onEnabled.

onReceive – the method is called simultaneously with all others. Often not used at all.

We will not delve too deeply into the software part of the widget, and therefore we will not overfill our example with any handlers, but will simply implement all the functionality using Layouts. You must declare the AppWidgetProvider class as follows:

package com.example.widget;

import android.appwidget.AppWidgetProvider;

public class widget extends AppWidgetProvider(

}

Next, we describe our widget - this is necessary so that the mobile device understands what it is dealing with. To do this you need to create a folder xml in folder res. In it we create a file with the name widget_ info. xml. Open the created file and write the following code into it:

android:minWidth=”294dp”

android:minHeight=”72dp”

android:updatePeriodMillis=”0″

android:initialLayout="@layout/widget">

Here is a brief description of the specified parameters:

minWidth – the minimum width required for the widget to work.

minHeight – the minimum height required for the widget to work.

updatePeriodMillis – the period during which the widget is updated, specified in milliseconds. The parameter is very useful, since after the specified time period has passed, the onUpdate method of the AppWidgetProvider object is triggered.

initialLayout – the parameter points to a resource describing the interface of our widget.

The formula for calculating the size of a widget is as follows: (number of cells * 74) - 2.

Let's start describing the interface of the widget we are creating. This is where the previously created background comes in handy. Import the background image into the folder dwawable(or in all three folders drawable for different screen resolutions). In folder layout create a file named widget. xml. The interface is described as for regular Activity, but there are some limitations. The following elements are allowed for use:

Let's create a LinearLayout, to which we will apply the created background image and add AnalogClock for example. The watch itself will not fit into the frame, but it will do just fine as a visual example. So:

android:id=”@+id/Widget”

android:layout_height="fill_parent"

android:orientation=”horizontal”

android:gravity=”center_vertical”

android:background=”@drawable/frame”>

android:layout_width="fill_parent"

android:layout_height="wrap_content"/>

That's basically it. After installing the widget on your Android device or emulator, you can install it on one of your desktops. After adding, we will contemplate the following.

While browsing my blog, I noticed this strange feature. I don't have a link to my business. Nowhere. And there is no need to wait for visitors to my blog to write or call me and ask what I ultimately do.

Good day, my dear friends and visitors to the blog site

How to make a widget for WordPress

No, after writing this article, I’m not going to post links in every new one - it won’t be correct and it won’t work. But the fact that the widget that will be placed before writing this text is yes)))

First of all, on your blog you need to position yourself as a person, an expert, a brand.

Why? I already wrote about this in the article

And first of all, when I first had the idea to do this, another one immediately followed: “Wait, this is great, but how am I actually going to do this?” I've never done this before. No, I posted a ready-made widget. But making a new one was already a challenge for me. And I accepted it.

So, a goal was set. Create a widget on the right side of your blog column, beautiful and attractive, that would have a link to a certain resource. But first, let's figure out what exactly a WIDGET is?

And of course, let's turn to the original source, i.e. to Wikipedia:

A widget is a graphical user interface primitive that has a standard appearance and performs standard actions.

In other words, this is some beautiful graphic object that performs certain actions. In my case, it acts as a kind of “conductor”; clicking on it takes us to a certain resource.

Making a widget

So, what do we need to make a widget?:

1. Actually the blog itself is on WordPress
2. Graphic image of the widget (drawing in .png format, other options are possible, I have not tried other formats)
3. The resource to which our widget will “link”

That's all. The most minimal requirements. And this whole procedure will take at most 10 minutes.

Let's start in order

1. Blog on WordPress. In the context of this article, I will not undertake to tell you how to create a blog on WordPress. This is the topic of more than one lesson and we will assume that you already have a ready-made blog. If this is not the case, here you go, my free course. “DIY Blog: The Beginning”
2. You can use the graphic image of your future widget at your own discretion. Whether it will be a drawing that you draw yourself or whether it will be ready-made or downloaded from the Internet - it’s up to you. I took a ready-made one, which the company itself kindly provided me with.

How to do this, see below:

So, graphic image We uploaded the future widget to our blog.

Drag the “Text” widget, as in the figure, to the desired location in the Widget Sidebar.

In the window that opens, insert the following data:

Instead of http://alexan... - write correct links, leading to the widget and resource image.