Several widgets come standard with WordPress, and others are bundled into plugins and are added to the list automatically. They are extremely easy to use, all you have to activate a widget is:

1. Drag the widget from the ‘Available Widget’ box into a sidebar on the right.
2. Click the gray triangle on the right side of one of the activated widgets to configure it.
   • N.B. Due to the huge variety of widgets it isn’t possible for us to explain the settings for each one. However, the default ones which are bundled with WordPress are all fairly intuitive. If you feel like you need more help, find the widget here, most of them have further instructions.

Widgets Page

Some of the default widgets that are included with WordPress include:

• Archives – A collection of blog posts, sorted by month. Settings include title, an option to show post count by month, and an option to display the archives as a drop down menu.
• Calendar – A calendar showing on what days you have posted. Offers an option to display a title.
• Categories – Displays a list of categories, has a configurable title, as well as options to display the list in a drop down menu, to show post count, and to show the category hierarchy.
• Links – Displays the links in your blogroll, which can be set in the ‘links’ section of the WordPress backend. Settings include options to display link image, name, description, and rating.
• Meta – Offers a place to log in and out, view RSS feeds, and show WordPress links. Has a changable title.
• Pages – Displays a list of pages. Options include title, a way to sort pages, and a method to exclude certain pages by ID.
• Recent Comments – Shows recent comments which have been made on your posts. Lets you change the title and how many comments are shown.
• Recent Posts – Creates a list of recently published posts. Title and how many posts are shown are able to be set.
• RSS – Displays any RSS feed upon your page. Settings are the URL of the RSS feed to be displayed, the title of the feed, how many items which are to be displayed, and options to display feed content, author, and date.
• Search – Makes a search bar which can be used to search your blog. Has a customizable title.
• Tag Cloud – Displays a tag cloud of the tags which your blog posts use. Options allow you to change the title.
• Text – Displays any text or HTML to be displayed upon the page. Settings allow you to change the title and the text or HTML to be displayed, as well as the option to automatically add tags around paragraphs.

Using the widget is easy.

1. Follow the steps in WordPress Widgets to drag the NextGEN Gallery Widget or the NextGEN Gallery Slideshow widgets to your sidebar.
2. Define the title of either or both widgets (what you want to be displayed over your pictures or slideshow)
3. Select what galleries the pictures are coming from through the gallery selection in the NextGEN Gallery Slideshow or by inserting the gallery ID (found in ‘Gallery’ and then ‘Manage Galleries’) and selecting whether these should be included or excluded in the NextGEN Gallery Widget.
4. For the NextGEN Gallery Widget, select how many images you want to be displayed, whether they should be thumbnails or the original photos, and whether they should be in random order or in the order they were added.
5. Select the width and height of each. This is how big the single picture in the slideshow widget will be, or how big each of the Gallery pictures will be.

NextGEN Gallery Widgets

It’s as easy as that. Click ‘Save’ at the bottom of the widget and they should be displayed the next time you visit your WordPress site.

The NextGEN Gallery Widget in Action