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A previous post outlined how to install Plugins that were already installed. Now I will show you how to install extra plugins. Our first plugin install is the Widget plugin. If your theme is “Widget ready” you will get an extra menu in presentation/widgets that allows you to drag and drop “widgets” to your sidebar. It’s pretty neat.

1. Find your plugin’s download page and download it to your desktop. You can find Word Press Widgets here.

2. Read any instructions, usually they are available on the download site but sometimes they are in a “readme.txt” inside the download folder. Keep this information open or print it out. It is most important to note if you need to do any customisation or if a particular folder needs to be uploaded somewhere else. Check too whether you should upload the whole of the unzipped folder or there is another folder inside that should only be uploaded (ie discard the containing folder). I’ve sometimes uploaded the unzipped folder and the plugin hasn’t worked (it wouldn’t show up in the Plugins list on Plugins/Plugins) only to find that it worked when I only uploaded the folder inside.

3. Upload the plugin folder/s to the specified destination. With simple plugins this may just be uploading the unzipped folder to your wp-content/plugins folder. Widgets has a number of different configurations that should all work. In the “widgets” folder, you should find folders called “classic” and “default”, put the contents (but not the actual folders) into the wp-contents/themes/classic folder and wp-contents/themes/default folder respectively. Get rid of these now empty folders. Upload the rest of the whole of the “widgets” folder (without “classic” and “default” folders) into wp-contents/plugins.

It should look like this (from Widgets homepage):

- wp-content
- plugins
- widgets
| delicious.php
| gsearch.php
| rss.png
| widgets.php
- scriptaculous
| builder.js
| controls.js
| dragdrop.js
| effects.js
| MIT-LICENSE
| prototype.js
| scriptaculous.js
| slider.js
| unittest.js
- themes
- classic
| functions.php (optional)
| sidebar.php (optional)
- default
| functions.php (optional)
| sidebar.php (optional)

NOTE: Your classic and default folders should already contain functions.php and sidebar.php so doing this install will overwrite them with new Widget ones. If you have already altered these files then you shouldn’t overwrite them (unless you’re happy to lose your changes). Either don’t bother with changing the templates, Widgets should still work, or look to see how you can apply the same changes to the new widget files.

4. Activate your Widgets plugin by going to Plugin/Plugins and click on “Activate” (Activate Plugins post).

5.You’ll notice also that there is also “Google Search Widget” and “del.icio.us Widget” in your list of Plugins, these are individual widgets which also need to be activated if you want to use them in your sidebars — just click on “Activate”. You can find more widgets at WordPress Third Party Widgets. Most of the time extra widgets will just be installed by being uploaded into the wp-contents/plugins/widgets folder but always check individual instructions.

6. Play with your new plugin. For Widgets if you go to Presentation/Widgets Sidebar, you’ll find that you are presented with your sidebar/s and a group of widget blocks under “Available Widgets”, just drag and drop them to the sidebars to include them in your theme. You can change the order of the blocks by dragging and if you click on the note icon (top right hand corner) you will often be given options to customise your widget. Remember to hit “Save Changes”.

If you want to go back to your default sidebar, just drag all the widget blocks off so it looks like this (and hit “Save Changes):

For more info:

• WordPress instructions can also be found at: Managing Plugins