Image widgets are handy tools for adding photos to your WordPress website, especially for users who don’t want to mess with HTML code.
With over 2.6 million downloads and a 4.9-star rating on WordPress.org, Modern Tribe’s classic Image Widget plugin has long been the go-to choice for adding simple, single-image widgets to a site’s sidebar.
In response to popular feature requests, they recently launched Image Widget Plus, a new premium plugin that adds lots of functionality while still maintaining the simplicity and ease of use people have come to expect from their plugins.
Image Widget Plus: Main Features
While the classic Image Widget plugin focused on adding a single image to your widget area, Image Widget Plus provides users with multiple image support and additional options to control how images display within the widget.
- Lightbox: Fill the screen with beautiful imagery, dimming the rest of the page background and creating a true focal point for the photos.
- Slideshow: Encourage users to flip through several photos or graphics without leaving the page.
- Random Images: Delight frequent visitors by displaying a random image each time the page is loaded or refreshed.
Image Widget Plus uses the native WordPress media manager, so you’ll see the standard options when you upload new images, including options to define alt text for the image, linking the image to a URL, and aligning the image left, right, or center.
Despite its simplicity, this plugin is very versatile – it’s responsive, MU compatible, and all fields within the widget are optional.
Adding Images to Your Sidebar
Once you’ve installed and activated Image Widget Plus, navigate to your available widgets under Appearance > Widget.
From there, adding an image to your sidebar is as simple as locating the widget labeled Image Widget Plus and dragging it to the spot you want it to display. Once the widget is added to your sidebar, you can select the image you want to display and fill in the related fields within the widget.
Boom! – That’s the whole process to add an image to your sidebar using the widget.
Exploring the Display Options
Image Widget Plus offers multiple display options for your photos.
Choose multiple photos and display them as a slideshow with Image Widget Plus.
Subtle arrows encourage visitors to scroll through your gallery. You can also combine the Slideshow display option with Lightbox to highlight your images even more.
With the Lightbox display option, visitors can click to enlarge a photo and have it fill their screen, dimming the rest of the site in the background.
Lightbox can be combined with any of the Image Display options. To enable it, simply check the box within your widget.
Random Image
Can’t decide which image to display? Select them all and let Image Widget Plus display one photo at random on each page load.
Random Image can be combined with Lightbox to show off each image in greater detail.
Customizing Image Widget Plus
For those that want to customize the look and feel of their image widgets, Image Widget Plus has you covered.
There are a number of filters in the code to allow you to override data as you see fit, including:
- tribe_image_plus_widget_instance lets you customize the output of widget instances
- image_size_names_choose lets you add custom image sizes
- ‘tribe_image_plus_template_’ . $template can be used to customize templates/views files
Plugin Support
Each Image Widget Plus license includes a full year of premium support from Modern Tribe. If you have questions or need technical assistance, you can get in touch with them through their premium support forums.
Image Widget Plus License Options
Image Widget Plus currently offers a single license level, with additional license levels in the works.
- $29/year
- Updates & Premium Support for 1 Site
- 30-day Money-Back Guarantee
Buy It: Image Widget Plus can be purchased directly from TheEventsCalendar.com