Can I have different widgets on different pages of my site?

  • Unknown's avatar
    buckfergus · Member ·

    Hi. I’m trying to use the widget area in the sidebar to highlight a different thing on each page of my website. Is there a way to turn widgets on or off depending on which page you’re on? (home, about, services, contact, etc.)
    Thank you for any help you can offer.

    The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)

  • Unknown's avatar
    houstonweaver · Member ·

    Yes you can set widgets to appear on certain pages using the Visibility button.

    Read about it here:

    Widgets

  • Unknown's avatar
    buckfergus · Member ·

    Thanks houstonweaver. Unfortunately, I don’t understand how to differentiate each page in a way that will work using the visibility button. For example, I would like to insert a different infographic into an image widget on each of 5 pages. But when I add a widget to one page, it shows up on all pages. And when I try to specify just one page to show it on, it just says all category pages or all tag pages. It’s driving me nuts.

  • Unknown's avatar
    houstonweaver · Member ·

    Go to Customize
    Choose Widgets
    Choose one that you want to appear on only one of your 5 pages.
    There will be a widget visibility button on the bottom right.

    Clicking the widget visibility button will reveal 3 drop downs.

    First one – choose between Show and Hide.
    2nd dropdown – choose Page
    3rd dropdown lists your pages. Chose the page you want to show this widget on.

    Be sure to Click the blue Save and Publish button (near the top – on my iPad anyway)

    Go to the Page and see if the widget appears.

    If so, Repeat for each of your 5 widget/page combinations.

    Let us know if it worked and if not, describe what problem occurred.

  • Unknown's avatar
    buckfergus · Member ·

    Thank you, but I’m still having trouble.

    The first two dropdowns are fine:
    1. show/hide
    2. select – Category, Author, Tag, Date, Page, Taxonomy

    But when I choose page from the third dropdown, these are my choices:

    – Front page
    – Posts page
    – Archive page
    – 404 error page
    – Search results
    Post type:
    – post
    – page
    – media
    – testimonial
    – project
    Static page:
    (but here it does not list my pages; it doesn’t list anything)

    I’ve tried all the other options (category, tag, taxonomy, etc.) and it still does not give me a list to choose from, just ‘all’.

    Maybe I should use a different host?

    Thank you for your advice!

  • Unknown's avatar
    houstonweaver · Member ·

    Have you published the 5 pages?
    -and are they actually published as pages or are they “category pages” or some other compiled page?

    -Do your 5 pages show in the menu bar?

    I’m not sure why that would matter, just trying to see any anomaly from the test site I am looking at. I am able to show a widget only on a static page and another one only on a category ” page”.

    Is this for a site hosted here at WordPress.com?

  • Unknown's avatar
    buckfergus · Member ·

    Yes, the pages are published, but marked “private” because I don’t want the site to go live before everything is ready.

    Yes, the pages show up on the menu.

    Yes, the site is hosted here at WordPress.com.

    I just discovered, under “menu” that you can add a tag or category to a page by clicking on the little page icon to the left of the page title. I was hopeful this might fix it, but sadly no, it didn’t help.

  • Unknown's avatar
    buckfergus · Member ·

    I notice the following, and wonder if it could be the problem:

    Under WP-admin
    Appearance
    Menus
    Pages – “no items”
    Menu Structure – looks fine, and shows all the pages

    Why would the page names not show up under Pages? Could that be the issue that’s causing all the problems?

  • Unknown's avatar
    buckfergus · Member ·

    Yahoo!!! I figured it out. It turns out you can’t (or I couldn’t) add a category to a pre-existing page. However, if you create a NEW page, you can add a category. THEN, you can selectively hide/show a widget based upon category. (I used the page name as the category, so, for example, the about page has been given “about” as a category.) This seems to do the trick.

  • Unknown's avatar
    buckfergus · Member ·

    Nope. The solution above only applies to blog posts, not pages. Arghhh!!

  • Unknown's avatar
    houstonweaver · Member ·

    I too wonder why your pages are not showing in the dropdown.

    My test page worked exactly as it should but when I did the Save and Publish, the button blurred but it did not look like a completed action. Hkwever when I reloaded the pages the widgets were appearing on the correct pages.

    If you are sure your 5 pages were published as Pages, it seems as though they should appear in the dropdown.

    I am going to mark this for a moderator to look at when they are available. Or perhaps another member will be able to shed some light on what could be happening.

  • Unknown's avatar
    buckfergus · Member ·

    Thanks for looking into this. I do appreciate your help.

  • staff-zinnia · Staff ·

    Hello!

    I can help you get these widgets configured once you are ready to make the these specific pages public. The privacy setting is prohibiting them from being available in the drop down options for widget visibility.

    You will want to create a new widget for each page, and then customize the visibility so that it is only shown on the desired page(s).

    Please let me know if you need further help or have additional questions about this :)

  • Unknown's avatar
    buckfergus · Member ·

    Ah…….. that’s the problem! Thank you! I should be okay, but will be in touch if I have any problems. Thanks so much!

  • staff-zinnia · Staff ·

    No worries :)

    Feel free to start a new thread if you need further help!

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