The Handmade widget-driven home page is designed to use widgets for the home page layout. If you are not using the widget-driven layout, you may skip the  Home Page Panel sections.

Access your Widget admin area under Appearance → Widgets

From WordPress 3.9, you may also configure widgets with a visual preview under Appearance → Customize.

Under the Widgets Section you will see the following panels if the Widget Driven Layout is active:

• Sidebar
• Home Page Gallery
• Home Page Widgets
• Shop Sidebar (Handmade eCommerce)
• Footer

Each widget area specific to your theme has been color coded to make setup easy. Simply drag the widgets you need into the corresponding panels.

At the top of the page you will find a yellow ribbon containing a handy “Click Here” link, which will display the recommended widget setup in case you get lost.

Below is an explanation of each widget and how to configure it.

Home page Gallery Panel

This panel accepts the blue (Obox) Featured Posts Gallery.  Once you drag and drop the widget into this panel, expand it to access the Widget Options:

1. Select a post type to display and click Save
2. Select a filter type (typically this is Categories) and click Save
3. Select the Category you would like to use. This is where you can choose your Featured category to display your handpicked posts, display All posts, or select a specific category and click Save
4. Select the number of posts you would like  the Post Count menu. (3-7 is needed at a minimum)
5. Select the Order By method if you would like your posts to display any other way than by date (default).
6. Select an Order of Descending or Ascending if you need to manipulate which posts show first.
7. Click Save

Home Page Widgets

The Home Page Widget area accepts any  full-width or orange Obox (home page) widgets. Single Obox (purple) or standard WordPress (gray) widgets placed in this section will fall into three columns. For best results, only use three single widgets as more may not stack properly and cause layout anomalies.

Obox) Content Widget

Display various kinds of content in a multi-column layout on your home page.  Products will display large thumbnails with a price overlay. Posts will display small thumbnails with a title (we recommend you enable excerpts when using posts)

1. Add a title. If you do not want a title to be visible, enter a space in the title field.
2. Choose the number of columns to display and click Save
3. Select what type of posts to display and click Save
4. Select a Filter type and click Save
5. Select your filter item or leave All selected and click Save
6. Select a number of posts from the Post Count menu. Ensure you choose at least as many posts as columns you selected in step 2
7. Select whether to display Post Feature Images or Videos in the Thumbnails menu.  For video posts, your featured image will display if Thumbnails is chosen. For video posts without a thumbnail, the video will be shown by default.
8. Toggle Show Date to hide or show the published date
9. Toggle Show Excerpts to show part of your post content. The default is either the content of your post’s Excerpt field or the first 150 words, or you can enter a custom Excerpt Length
10. Click Save

(Obox) Product Category Widget

This widget displays Category images, titles and descriptions for specific product categories and is great for displaying promos, sales or services. To add images to your categories, go to Products → Categories. When creating or editing a category, you can upload an image at the bottom of the form in the Thumbnail section by clicking the Upload/Add Image button. Recommended dimensions are at least 500px wide.

1. Enter a Title
2. Choose the number of columns under Column Layout and click Save
3. Select the Category to show in each column
4. Check(show) or uncheck(hide) the following options:
   • Show Category Title
   • Show Images
   • Show Description
5. Click Save

 

(Obox) Page Widget

Display featured images from specific Pages and then link them to the page or anywhere you wish. This widget is useful for advertising promotions or areas of your site. For best results, link to pages within your site rather than other websites to keep users on your page.

1. Select the number of columns and click Save
2. Enter a Title (optional) for each item
3. Enter a Custom Title Link if you wish your title to link to the page or somewhere else. If left blank, the title will not link.
4. Choose a Page for each column. For each column, choose to show or hide the following elements by checking or unchecking the boxes:
   • Show Title - displays the page title under the image, if shown
   • Show Images - displays the page featured image
   • Show Description - displays the page content or Excerpt.
5. If you choose to show the Description, you may control the length of text by entering an Excerpt Length (character count) . We recommend using the manual Excerpt field in the Page instead.
6. Click Save

Shop Sidebar

This block is designed to display WooCommerce and default WordPress widgets such as Text, Latest Posts and Comments. Any widget that you would usually place in the sidebar of your theme can be placed in this area, so it really is up to you. View our demo for examples. For help with Woo Widgets, visit the WooCommerce Documentation.

Sidebar

This block is designed to display Obox (blue) and any single-column widgets (grey) such as Text, Latest Posts and Comments, although you can also put WooCommerce widgets here such as Recently Viewed, Featured Products etc. This sidebar appears on category/post-list pages, the Archives page template, Blog page template (with sidebar enabled) and default pages. Below are details on configuring Obox widgets. For help with default widgets, visit the WordPress Codex. For Woo Widgets, visit the WooCommerce Documentation.

(Obox) Twitter Stream

Display the Twitter timeline. Please note that you cannot customize or change the format of the tweets beyond what the widget offers (this is a Twitter requirement)

1. Enter a Title such as “Follow Me on Twitter”. This title will link to your profile.
2. Enter your Twitter ID without the @
3. Click the link to go to your Twitter Profile widget page
   • Click Create New, then Create Widget.
   • Copy the numeric ID from the address bar URL and paste it below. ie https://twitter.com/settings/widgets/344941445658050562/edit
   • • 
4. Select the number of Tweets to show.
5. Select whether to display Replies/ Retweets
6. Select a default color scheme. When used in the sidebar or any dark background, choose Dark.
7. Enter a custom color for the links using an HTML color code (gray by default)
8. Enter a widget height to adjust the container height if showing more than 3 tweets.
9. Click Save

(Obox) Social Links

Displays icons linking to your social profiles. Enter the full URLs to your social profiles here. For the email field, enter your email address. For RSS, enter your RSS Feed Url or Feedburner URL.

(Obox) Popular Posts

This widget displays posts links ranked by the number of comments received in all time.

1. Enter a Title
2. Select a Post Count
3. Select a Post Category
4. Click Save

(Obox) Thumbnail Slider

This widget displays videos or featured images in your sidebar.

1. Enter a Title, or a blank space if no title is desired
2. Select a post category
3. Select the number of slides
4. Select whether to display Post Feature Images or Videos in the thumbnails menu. For video posts, your featured image will display if Thumbnails is chosen. For video posts without a thumbnail, the video will be shown by default.
5. Click Save

Footer

Displays sidebar widgets in 4 columns. This block is designed to display regular widgets (grey) such as Text, Latest Posts and Comments. You can also place blue Obox widgets and WooCommerce widgets here.

125x125 Adverts (also called Small Adverts Widget)

Displays 125x125 blocks added under Theme Options → Adverts

300px Adverts (Also Called Large Adverts Widget)

Displays 300x250 blocks added under Theme Options → Adverts