Month: March 2018

How to add and use widgets in WordPress

This post introduces how to use widgets in WordPress.

What are Widgets? Why You Need to Use Widgets in WordPress?

Widgets are tiny blocks of specific functionality that you can place in your WordPress sidebars (also known as widget-ready-areas). This is an easy way to add things like galleries, quotes, popular posts, and other dynamic items such as maps on their WordPress site.

Widgets can be found on Appearance » Widgets page in your WordPress admin area.

 

You will see the widgets that you can add under the list of available widgets.

On your right hand, you will find the designated areas on your WordPress site where you can place these widgets. These designated areas are defined by your WordPress theme. They are called sidebars or widget-ready areas.

If you don’t see a specific widget you’re looking for, then it can likely be added with a plugin (more on this later).

Adding Widget to a Sidebar in WordPress

There are multiple ways to add widgets to sidebars available in your WordPress theme.

(1) The easiest one is to simply drag and drop them to your sidebar.

Animation showing how to drag and drop a Widget to a sidebar in WordPress

(2) You can also click on a widget title from the list of available widget. WordPress will show you the list of sidebars where you can add this widget.

Simply select the sidebar where you want to add the widget, and then click on Add widget button to add it.

Add widget button

 

How to Remove a Widget in WordPress?

Removing a widget in WordPress is just as simple as adding them. Visit the Appearance » Widgets page.

Look for the widget that you want to remove in your sidebars and click on the widget title to expand it.

Removing a widget by deleting it from your WordPress sidebar

Below the widget settings, you will find the link to delete the widget. Deleting a widget will remove it from your sidebar and will also delete widget settings like title or any options that you selected.

Some widgets are too simple and don’t have many options in their settings while others have many options and settings. If you would like to remove a widget without losing the settings, then you need to drag and drop it to the inactive widgets section.

Removing a widget without deleting its settings

Deleting or sending a widget to inactive widgets does not remove it from the list of available widgets. You can always add a widget again from the list of available widgets or inactive widgets.

What Kind of Widgets are Available for WordPress?

A default WordPress installation comes with some built-in widgets like recent posts, recent comments, archives, search, etc.

Many WordPress themes and plugins come with their own plugins.

For example, Envira Gallery plugin allows you to create beautiful image galleries in your WordPress posts and pages. But it also comes with an Envira Gallery widget, which you can add to a sidebar to display image galleries in WordPress.

Envira gallery widget

Similarly, countless other themes and plugins add widgets, so their users can add things to their WordPress sidebars without writing any code or html.

There are hundreds of WordPress plugins that just add widgets for you to use in your sidebar. See our list of the 25 most useful WordPress widgets for your site.

 

References

Ubuntu command line check disk usage

To check hard disk usage on Ubuntu from a terminal (command line), issue the following command  in your terminal.

liping:~$ df -h

-h stands for human which makes it readable by us humans, otherwise the file size will be in bytes:)

After you issue the command, you would  see your disk usage similar to the info given below.

Filesystem            Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda7              68G   23G   43G  35% /
udev                   10M     0   10M   0% /dev
tmpfs                 800M  1.6M  798M   1% /run
tmpfs                 5.0M     0  5.0M   0% /run/lock
/dev/sda6             264G  173G   78G  69% /home
tmpfs                 3.2G  992K  3.2G   1% /tmp
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For more commonly used Linux commands, check my other posts at here  and here .

Some tips for creating a good poster

This post provides some tips for creating a good poster.

(Stay tuned, as I keep updating it.)

Check HERE for creating a Poster with PowerPoint.

  • There is often way too much text in a poster. Posters primarily are visual presentations; the text should support the graphics. Look critically at the layout. Some poster ‘experts’ suggest that if there is about 20-25% text, 40-45% graphics and 30-40% empty space, you are doing well.
  • Remember the poster session will be crowded so design the poster to be read in columns so people can read what is in front of them and move left to right to get the whole story.
  • The poster should use photos, figures, and tables to tell the story of the study. For clarity, present the information in a sequence that is easy to follow.
  • Include more figures than are in the paper so you can talk to them.  Include things that are not in the paper and then encourage them to read the paper. Don’t try to just put all the paper here.
  • If it looks like a cut/paste of the paper, people skip that poster since they can read the papers after the conference. Many people find it better to spend time talking with poster presenters that have more to offer than just redoing the paper content paper in big fonts.
  • Remember Poster boards look like this.. This is your canvas. Paint us a picture of your work.

  • Leave enough margin for pushpin and remember many big plotters cannot get within .5” of the actual paper edge.
  • You are free to use colored backgrounds and such but they generally reduce readability.
  • You are free to use what ever fonts you like.
      • San Serif fonts like Arial are more readable from a distance,
      • Serif fonts like times may look more consistent with your mathematics
  • TBA

Credits:

 

 

 

Creating a Poster with PowerPoint

Procedure

Download and edit a poster template (e.g.,  poster template, or HERE, and HERE) or follow the instructions below.

check HERE for some tips of creating a good poster.

  • Start PowerPoint and open “new presentation”
  • From the menu bar, select File > Page setup.
  • In the box that appears, the first section is “size.”
  • Next to the heading “slides sized for,” select “custom” from the pull-down menu
  • Required dimensions are 48” wide by 36” high. Click “OK.”
  • You will see this prompt: “the current page size exceeds the printable area of the paper in the printer.” It will offer three options: cancel, OK, and fix. Click “OK.”
  • Set the slide layout to “blank.” This is done differently in different versions of PowerPoint. If you are having difficulty, type “layout” in the PowerPoint help menu, and you will find instructions on how to create or change slide layouts.
  • You can look at the poster at different sizes. Using a smaller size (e.g. 25%) will allow you to see the whole poster at once. Using a larger size (e.g. 75%) will allow you to read your text more easily.
  • If you find it difficult to keep track of what you are doing, create a second PowerPoint file, with a regular sized PowerPoint slide presentation. You can make a series of slides and then copy the text boxes and pictures from those slides into the custom poster file

 

 

References: