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Designing sidebar for optimal look and use

  1. mission101jenise
    Member

    My blog is http://mission101jenise.wordpress.com

    I'm having a problem setting up my sidebar.

    I have 101 tasks/goals that I want to show on the sidebar under the heading "Mission 101 Goals." I would like each task to link to a page within the blog that would include a description to the goal, any associated links to websites if applicable, and a memorialization or journaling, per se, of the task once it has been completed. Ultimately each page would include text, images and links and I'm fairly sure I can accomplish that by pasting Word. While I'd love it if I could incorporate a hover function over each task on the sidebar (like "Links" provides), that's one feature I could live without.

    What is the best way to achieve this? I want the appearance of the list to have vertical alignment of the columns and a strike-out function the way it is illustrated on my Test page that you can see at my blog.

    Any help will be GREATLY appreciated. This has been some kind of brain drain learning how to set up a blog!

    Also...this is a really minor annoyance but...the Chaotic Soul template has default text "Journal Search..." in the search widget. I can't get that text to show up. I've tried clearing my cache and rebooting several times but no joy.

    Thanks!!

    Jenise

  2. teck07
    Member

    From WordPress.TV > Text widgets - a quick way to add text, links and images to your sidebar

  3. mission101jenise
    Member

    Nope....that doesn't do it, unless I'm missing something (always up at the top of possibilities)!

    I added it as text doing a copy paste from a Word doc with several lines of text, some of which were url links. You can go to my blog and see the result. No joy.

    http://mission101jenise.wordpress.com

    Also...the minor annoyance question (last paragraph on OP) - any clue how to fix that?

  4. mission101jenise
    Member

    Looking around a bit, I'm wondering if I have to know CSS to use the text widget to my liking. If that's so....I'm in deep doo-doo.

  5. vivianpaige
    Member

    Actually, you are missing something.

    You can put a lot of stuff in a text widget, including links. Check the FAQ on writing links. Once you have written and published a page, you can write a link to it in a text widget.

    Now - you said there are 101 tasks/goals so you are going to need to write 101 pages.

    And never paste from Word. You are just asking for trouble.

  6. vivianpaige
    Member

    One more thing - no, you don't need CSS for using a text widget. Just HTML.

  7. mission101jenise
    Member

    If I'm pasting from Word using the "Paste from Word" function I'm going to be in trouble? I used that for my welcoming post sticky so I could have a link that said (for instance) "Day Zero" instead of "http://blahblah.com" - I couldn't figure a way to do that while I was in the post editor the regular way.

    I've read and re-read the FAQs but am off to read them again.

    I'm hoping you're gonna tell me that I'm okay pasting Word as long as I use that 'paste word' button, because I found a post where someone said I could paste from word into the edit post box, flip to the code and copy paste the code into the text widget.

    Yeah....I know I'm gonna be making 101 pages. Ugh. That'll probably have me getting out the plastic and buying some space :)

    Thanks for the fast response Vivian! And especially thanks for telling me I don't have to learn CSS...LOL.

  8. vivianpaige
    Member

    Nearly all of the extraneous code is stripped out when you use the "Paste from Word" function. Sometimes, some is left. So be aware of it.

    You need to figure out how to use the editor in WordPress.COM. It's not rocket science and making a link using it is easy - just review the FAQ on writing links. http://support.wordpress.com/links/

  9. vivianpaige
    Member

    And this one http://support.wordpress.com/links/text-widget-links/

  10. teck07
    Member

    Since you mentioned MS Word, You could use the Offline Blog Editor
    called Windows Live Writer,

    http://windowslivewriter.spaces.live.com/

  11. mission101jenise
    Member

    I'll look into these suggestions! THANKS so much for the advice!

    Anyone have a clue on the "Journal Search..." not showing up on my Search Widget?

  12. mission101jenise
    Member

    OMG Vivian THANK YOU!!! I went to the first link and in three seconds got the link made correctly in the editor. I don't know what it was I was doing before but I never got that pop-up!

    Whew! I'm on my way now!

    I can't thank you enough!

  13. panaghiotisadam
    Member

    @mission101jenise: Re that passing detail in your 1:56 AM post ("I know I'm gonna be making 101 pages. Ugh. That'll probably have me getting out the plastic and buying some space"), the answer is no. You can have an unlimited number of posts and pages. The 3GB space limit of a free wp.blog only applies to items you UPLOAD in the blog, such as images (and again it's huge - amounts to thousands of images).

  14. mission101jenise
    Member

    Well that's wonderful news panaghiotisadam! Thanks for that bit of info :)

  15. vivianpaige
    Member

    Glad to help! And now you know where the FAQ pages are, too :)

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