Even blogs with outstanding content need something to simplify the navigation through the posts. And the role of that "something" usually falls on the blog sidebar. You can include search form, categories tree, recent blog posts, archive, tags cloud and RSS feed widgets to help your blog visitor find relevant content faster.
So today you'll learn how to configure blog sidebar in the Shopware Blog extension.
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To configure sidebar widgets in Shopware Blog, first, navigate to Extensions > My extensions, find the Blog by Magefan among your extensions and click Configure. Then scroll down to the Sidebar section.
Search Form
To configure the search form in blog sidebar you simply need to Enable it and specify the Search Form Sort Order.
Note: the sort order option defines the position of this widget in the sidebar. The lower the number the higher the number, the lower the widget will be displayed. It applies to all sidebar widgets.
Category Tree
To configure the category tree in the blog sidebar:
1. Enable the category tree in a sidebar and blog categories will be displayed in it by the Position you define while creating them.
2. Choose whether to Display Number of Posts near the category in brackets e.g. (10).
3. Specify Category Maximum Depth.
4. Set the Category Sort Order.
Recent Posts
To configure the recent blog posts in the sidebar:
1. Enable the widget.
2. Choose whether to display the Recent Post Image in the sidebar.
3. Specify the Number of Posts to display.
4. Set the Recent Posts Sort Order.
Note: for posts to appear in this widget you need to enable the Include in Recent Posts option when creating blog posts.
Archive
To configure the archive widget in the blog sidebar you simply need to Enable it and set the Archive Sort Order.
Tag Cloud
To configure tag cloud in the Shopware blog sidebar:
1. Enable the tag cloud widget and specify the Tag Colour.
2. Set the Tag Sort Order and specify the Number of Tags to display in the tag cloud.
RSS Feed
To configure RSS Feed in Shopware Blog:
1. Enable the RSS feed widget and specify the RSS Feed Sort Order.
2. Set the RSS Feed Title and RSS Feed Description.
Don't forget to Save the settings after configuring each sidebar widget, or all of them, and go to the storefront to check it out.
Once you configure the sidebar widget, finding content on your blog should be much easier. You don't necessarily need to enable all of them, just the ones you think are the most helpful in navigating through your blog. However, you also shouldn't forget about blog homepage settings.
