Widget Areas

Longview includes eight widget areas. Three in the header, two sidebars, and three more in the footer. All widget areas are optional. However, if you’re using a page layout that includes a sidebar, using the sidebar widget area is probably a good idea.

Header Widget Areas

  • Before Header
  • Inside Header
  • After Header

Here’s a screenshot with all three header widget areas in use:

Header with extra row on top and bottom

If the Inside Header widget area is in use, it replaces the default header menu. If the Inside Header widget area is empty, the menu assigned to the Header menu location is displayed.

All header widget areas support the following widgets:

  • Archives (dropdown format)
  • Categories
  • Custom Menu
  • Meta
  • Pages
  • Recent Posts (without post date)
  • Search
  • Text

For more information on the header widget areas, see the documentation on header and footer philosophy.

Content Widget Areas

  • Sidebar
  • Additional Sidebar

Here is a screenshot with both sidebars in use:

Content column with one sidebar on each side

Both sidebar widget areas support the following widgets:

  • Archives
  • Calendar
  • Categories
  • Custom Menu
  • Meta
  • Pages
  • Recent Comments
  • Recent Posts
  • RSS
  • Search
  • Tag Cloud
  • Text

Please note: all widget areas are optional. For more info on different sidebar layouts, please see the documentation on page layouts.

Footer Widget Areas

  • Before Footer
  • Inside Footer
  • After Footer

Here’s a screenshot with all the footer widget areas in use:

Footer with extra rows on top and bottomFooter widget areas can be displayed in two different formats.

Horizontal

If any of the footer widget areas contain only a single widget, they display that widget horizontally (similar to the way widgets are displayed in the header). In this format, the supported widgets are:

  • Archives
  • Categories
  • Custom Menu
  • Meta
  • Pages
  • Recent Posts (without post date)
  • Search
  • Tag Cloud
  • Text

Vertical

If any of the footer widget areas contain more than one widget, the widgets are displayed vertically in columns (more info on that later). Since the widgets are displayed vertically in this format, they use the same styles as the sidebar widget areas, and support the same widgets.

Just like the header, the Inside Footer widget area replaces the default footer menu (and also the default copyright text). If the Inside Footer widget area is empty, the menu assigned to the Footer menu location is displayed.

For more information on the footer widget areas, see the documentation on header and footer philosophy.

Widget Columns

You’ll notice in the screenshot above that the footer widget areas with more than one widget are broken up into columns. Longview automatically counts the number of widgets in each footer widget area and divides each widget area into a corresponding number of columns.

Removing Unwanted Widget Areas

The includes/settings.php file has a function that simplifies the process of removing widget areas. Simply uncomment the line corresponding to the widget area you want to remove. For example, if your site will never use the second sidebar widget area, uncomment the corresponding line like this:

function thmfnd_remove_widget_areas() {
	// unregister_sidebar( 'sidebar-1' );
	unregister_sidebar( 'sidebar-2' );
	// unregister_sidebar( 'header-before' );
	// unregister_sidebar( 'header-inside' );
	// unregister_sidebar( 'header-after' );
	// unregister_sidebar( 'footer-before' );
	// unregister_sidebar( 'footer-inside' );
	// unregister_sidebar( 'footer-after' );
}
add_action( 'widgets_init', 'thmfnd_remove_widget_areas', 11 );