Have you seen popular websites featuring specific pages in their sidebars? These static pages are used to display information like an about page, getting started page new readers, an archives page, etc. Recently one of our users asked us if there was a way to feature pages in WordPress. In this article, we will show you how to feature a page in WordPress.
First thing you need to do is install and activate the Feature A Page Widget plugin. Upon activation simply go to Appearance » Widgets where you will notice a new widget called ‘Feature a Page Widget’. Next, drag and drop the widget to a sidebar.
The first option in the widget settings is to choose a widget title. You can leave it blank if you want. Second, you need to select a page you want to feature from the drop down menu.
As soon as you select a page, the widget will show you the page status. It will check for a page thumbnail (featured image) and excerpt.
If your page does not have them, then the widget will highlight them in red color. You can click on the pencil icon which will open the page in the post editor where you can set a thumbnail and excerpt.
If you don’t see the Excerpt meta box when editing the page, then you need to enable it. Click on the Screen Options button on the top right corner of the screen. A fly down menu will appear, and you need to simply check the box next to Excerpt.
Now scroll down to the excerpt meta box which is below the post editor.
Once your page has both the excerpt and thumbnail, you can choose a layout for your widget. Currently, it offers three layout choices. Wrapped image layout will display your page thumbnail wrapped with excerpt. The banner image layout option will display your thumbnail image on top of the excerpt. Lastly, the big image layout option will display a larger version of the image on top of your page excerpt.
After choosing a layout option, you can click on the Save button to store your widget settings.
That’s all, you can now preview your website to see your featured page in WordPress. Remember you can add multiple featured page widgets in your sidebars. You can also show or hide widgets on specific WordPress pages.
We hope this article helped you feature pages in WordPress.
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Sarah
Nice plugin,
One thought as an idea..
Allow admin to set posts/pages a ‘Featured Post Of The Day’ as a popup where they can select at time intervals, Day, Month, Banner, Except, Link URL.
We don’t use sidebar widgets that much so having an ability to allow this as a popup on target pages would be a bonus!
Nice plugin
Mark Root-Wiley
Hi Sarah,
I’m glad to hear you like the plugin! (It’s always appreciated if you can leave a review saying as much!)
Since the plugin’s focus is on *Pages*, date-driven features are low on the priority list. The most likely would be a “Most Recent Post” option if anything.
As for using the widget as a popup, I’d encourage you to explore plugins that allow for Widgets in pages or give you a widget shortcode. That’s always my recommendation for getting Feature a Page Widget into non-sidebar locations.
Jen
Hi,
Is there a way to add this widget to the top of your page,under the banner?
Thanks
Mark Root-Wiley
Hi Everyone,
Mark the plugin’s developer here again. I’m happy to belatedly announce that 2.0.0 is now officially available in the plugin repository!
The new version includes a ton of great new features:
– Allows you to feature posts of any post type. Pages and Posts are enabled by default.
– New advanced options allow you to hide the Page Title, Feature Image, and Excerpt or add a “Read More” link.
– Improved interface makes more sense and better matches the current admin styles.
– New templating system uses separate files for each layout and is much easier to modify.
– New filters allow for more control over the widget output.
Full documentation of the new version is available on my website.
Thank to everyone who’s ever tried the plugin. I hope this new version makes the plugin even more powerful and easy to use.
Claire
Hi Mark – if you’re there..?
I installed the plugin and set up the widget, but my excerpt is transposed, displaying vertically down the page. Can you help me fix it?
Thanks everso
Claire
Mark Root-Wiley
Hi @claire. I’m not subscribed to this comment feed (which I’ll do now) so didn’t see your comment until now. If you’re still having trouble, please open a support thread in the Support Forum: https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/feature-a-page-widget
mrwweb
Hi Everyone,
I’m Mark, the developer of the Feature a Page Widget. I’m glad you’ve found it worth reviewing and using!
Today I released the 2.0.0-beta version that has lots of new goodies. It needs a bit more testing, so if you’re interested in the new features, please try it out and let me know what you think of it.
You can find the details about the new version and information for trying it out at http://wordpress.org/support/topic/feature-a-page-widget-200-beta-available-for-testing?replies=1#post-6013471.
I look forward to hearing your feedback!
-Mark
Pamela
I downloaded the Feature-A-Page widget but don’t understand how to ‘install and activate’ it. Help.
Paul Ames
nicely done, used this in my site, how can you disable sharing buttons within the featured box, without disabling them on each page, which are showing up, using shareaholic? Have you heard of this one?
canciller
And without a plugin ?… what is the benefit of using a plugin instead of code?
Aba
Not everyone can/want to code?