WordPress widgets are the small blocks which perform some specific actions according to the user’s needs. WordPress widgets are created to perform some specific actions with the structure and design defined by the theme in an easy and simple manner. Widgets allow you to add contents or features to the widgetized areas of your theme. They can be dragged and dropped to specific areas called widget areas. The widget areas are defined by the theme, most commonly the sidebars are the most used widget areas in WordPress.
There are thousands of widgets available for the WordPress CMS. You can select from a wide range of widgets to apply to your website. Categories, tag cloud, navigation menu, calendar, search, recent posts, etc… are some default WordPress widgets which built in with the WordPress. They are some basic ones which help you to do some basic operations. There is a wide range of plugins and contents available to add to your widget areas. You can add almost any plugins or files available on your website to the widget areas.
The theme must support the widget areas to add your widgets to the specified places. You can go to Appearance > Widgets section in your WordPress dashboard to know more about the widgets of your theme and their areas. If you unable to find any widget areas there. It means your theme doesn’t support widget areas of its own. In such a situation or if you want to add additional widget areas to the theme, you must edit the function files of your theme and add some codes to them as per your requirements.
Note: Editing the theme files is an option for the programmers or someone who knows the basic coding languages like HTML, CSS, PHP, etc… misconfigurations of these files may cause serious problems to your theme. So, don’t edit them unless you are aware of what you are going to do.
Know more about widgets from the WordPress itself
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