A rather large segment of class today was spent with various attempts at creating a custom widget to add to our blogs. Think of a widget as a small application with a very simple purpose. If my car was a website, I would think of the CD player as a widget – not vital to the functionality, but an extra aspect added for enjoyment, ergonomics, or a separate function. Not that I really use CD’s anymore… but you get the point. In fact, my car also has a tape player! So a widget then is an add-on, something that provides an extra element of efficiency or pleasure to a website or homepage.
I finally figured out how to create a widget of my twitter account, which would display my latest tweets, retweets and favourites. With the inspiration of Jason‘s incentive of ‘brownie points’ (let’s just pretend I believe you), here’s a simple process to embed a Twitter widget on your WordPress page! You’re welcome!
- Sign into your Twitter account and go to the settings page
- On the left sidebar there will be a category called Widgets. Click on that, then click Create new
- Choose your preferred settings and colour, then create widget.
- A funky looking HTML box will appear underneath your displayed widget. Hint, it has a lot of symbols and letters. Copy that.
- Now go to your WordPress dashboard admin, click appearance -> widgets
- There should be a box labelled text around somewhere, with a description of arbitrary text or HTML. Drag that to a widget sidebar of your choice (some themes may not provide options). Paste the text you copied earlier.
- Refresh and admire your
networking new Twidget! (I know I just made up that word, but I like it – so it stays)
Twitter bird
