Styling WordPress with Widgets and Plugins

If you've uploaded and installed Wordpress (WP), you're probably anxious to style your site with widgets and plugins. In this article, Linda provides tips and tools that can make these design options work best for you.

Hybrid Hooks

If you downloaded and installed the WP plugin, Hybrid Hook, you have even more options to play with your theme, as long as the theme belongs to Theme Hybrid. In other words, you can download the Hybrid Hook and install it, but it won't work unless you're using one of Justin Tadlock's themes. But, note the options shown below, and think about all the things you can do to that Web site if you can add text, PHP and priorities to your Web site (Warning: You also must be using version 2.8 or higher of WordPress to use this plugin):

While you can use the tabs shown above to add to your pages, I find it more useful to go to the "Hybrid Hook" link under the "Appearance" tab in the left column of my dashboard. When you click on that link, you'll see this page:

The first arrow above shows where the Hybrid Hook option page is located. The second arrow points to the options, which are the same as they are in the previous image, but they are laid out in boxes with an "Execute PHP?" radio box to the bottom right of each option. Additionally, you can see where you can place priorities here in the radio boxes to the left of the execute PHP option under each category. Finally, the third arrow points to documentation and forums that you can use, but only if you're a member of the Theme Hybrid club.

I mentioned in a previous article that joining the Theme Hybrid club costs a small fee, and it is worth every penny for support on Justin Tadlock's themes as well as for any plugins and other options that he provides. But, today I noticed that his fee to join is nothing – nada, zip, no money. I would suggest joining ASAP so that you can gain access to all the support and documentation you need for those themes and plugins, as those themes are the ones I'll be working with in this series of articles.

Join now to gain access to the Hybrid Hook documentation as well, as it is easy to understand and provides more explanations than I can add here, That said, I will provide a tip about the PHP code and the sidebar links for Hybrid Hook – you can add PHP to a text widget after you drag that widget into a hook link in your sidebar, and it will work.

For instance, if I want to add a PHP script that for Google Analytics, I can add a text box widget to the "Hook: After Footer" link in my right sidebar, then add the code (no need for a title), save it, close the box and it will work (NOTE: Google Analytics can take up to 24-48 hours to show stats, so be patient to see if the code works for you – if not, then at least you have access to forums where you can learn if others had this problem as well).