Links widgets are commonly used on a class blog to provide links to other class blogs, student blogs and resources— they are designed to help you, your students and others find websites easily.
The most common type of link widget you’ll hear mentioned is a blogroll. Bloggers commonly use blogrolls to list their favourite blogs. Blogrolls help readers locate other blogs worth reading — you are saying “these are some blogs I like – which are worth checking out!”
Blogrolls on class blogs are used often used to provide links to student blogs or other class blogs they interact with.
What’s On This Page?
- Step 1: Create your links
- Step 2: Add Links Widget to your sidebar
- Link Widget Configuration options
Step 1: Create your links
Here is how you create links to websites or blogs:
1. Go to Links > Add New.
2. Add the name of the website or blog to the Name Module.
3. Add the URL to the Web Address module.
Best option is to copy/paste the URL from the address bar of your web browser – as you are less likely to make a mistake.
4. Select Blogroll in the Category Module or create a new Category then click Add Link.
You use different categories if you organize your links in different locations in your sidebars.
Once you’ve created the links you add them to your sidebar using the Links widget.
Adding the links widget is as easy as:
1. Go to Appearance > Widget in your Dashboard.
2. Click on the desired Sidebar to expand (so you can add the link widget).
3. Drag the links widget from the Available Widgets into the desired Sidebar.
4. Drop the widget when you see a dashed line appear – this indicates the widget is in place.
5. The widget will automatically open — just configure, click Save and then Close.
Link Widget Configuration options
The link widget has a range of different configuration options:
Link Category
The dropdown menu under Select Link category allows you to select which of your links to display.
You can choose All Links from all categories, or just links in a specific link category. To display links from multiple categories in different locations on your sidebar you just add multiple link widgets, and select a different link category for each one.
Sort By
You can choose to display links by Link title, Rating, Link ID, or Randomly.
If you select Link title your links will be sorted in alphabetical order whereas Link IDs displays the links in the order you created the links.
Show link name
The Show link name displays the name specified when you created the links.
Show link description
When you select Show link description it displays the description specified when you created the links.
Number of links to show
This controls how many links are displayed. If you want all your links displayed you just leave the box empty.