Widgets

Has anybody made a widget?

What is a widget?

Why make one?

How is it used on LT.....and will it follow me out of this site and into others....?

Help Me Understand this if you can.

A good place to start:

http://www.librarything.com/more/widgets

Short answer - widgets are not used on LT, LT already has all the functionality of widgets (well, more or less. No random showing of books with covers...). They're used for showing off books and linking to LT from elsewhere - as it says in brightcopy's link, put it on your own site, blog, homepage on another site...

Got it! So then, the only time I would want to click on the word widget in the upper right hand corner of my screen, is to be able to create one to place on my personal site, blog, homepage, etc....and I would be creating a LT little stamp?....that anyone could click on and then be linked to LT?

If this is right, then Eureka!! :) I understand widgets!!!

If not, then back to the drawing board for me. :P

Almost. You can create a little LT stamp - those are called chiclets. You can also create a box with a series of covers or lines of text showing up, listing some of the books in your catalog - any books, or books tagged with a particular tag, or...there's a lot of options, click on the Widgets link and you'll go to a page with dropdowns and stuff to modify the widget you're building. It shows a running copy of the widget on that page, so you can see what your changes do (colors, sizes, which books...); below that is where the code that you need to copy to your other place, once you're satisfied with the widget, shows up, and below that one to let other LTers make widgets that look just like yours (Share this Widget).

The chiclets, and some other kinds of widgets, are actually under More>Widgets and Extensions. The first one on that page is the one you get to if you click Widgets up in the corner; after that are some that work where the 'blog widget' doesn't.

But other than that, yeah - you click on that to create something to be placed somewhere else, for pretty and to link people to your LT account.

Here's mine: (wait a bit for the pages to stop turning and the covers to appear)

www.guenean.com

http://www.librarything.com/widget.php?shareID=w4bf0f1e23d4a2580979f35003966d55c... - click on this link to go to the widget-building page (what you get to if you click Widgets in the corner) with the option set so it works and looks like mine. Also it will have my books, and give you the option to look at it with your books in it.

I use widgets to show my current reads on my homepage and my blog.

>5 jjmcgaffey: OK JJmcgaffey......so, the green box at the right of your home page is a widget? And did you create it using the widget option on LT?

6>saltmanz. I saw the LT logo on your homepage.......this is a widget?
And all the book covers all over your blog....these were widgets?

Thanks for your patience answering my questions. :)

8: My widgets show the books I'm currently reading (3 books at the moment): on my homepage, it's on the left sidebar. On my blog, it's on the right sidebar. The only parts that are actually part of the widget are the three books and the "powered by LT" line; I make mine with no background color or border so they blend right in with the rest of the page. Here are links to the widgets themselves on LT if you want to play around with them and see what I did:
• homepage widget
• blog widget
(When I use them, I only show my "Currently reading" collection, but the link doesn't preserve that.)

7> Yes and yes. If you click the link at the bottom of my post, you'll go to the widget building page with that widget on it, so you can see the choices I made to make it. Same for the two links in post 9 - you can see saltmanz's two widgets on the LT widget building page.

saltmanz, how did you get the clear background? It shows as gray when I first go to the building page, but if I click on the color it's white... I'm confused. A clear background would be nice.

>9 saltmanz: & 10....THANK YOU....I am all studied up and clear as to what widgets are and how I can use them.

Very clever indeed. Thank you for your explanations and the time invested in educating me.

Both of you have wonderful days/nights.

CSailin :)

10: To get the clear background, I think (it's been a while) that I just hit "clear" next to the background color box.

Oh! That makes sense. I read it as "clear the color that's in the box"...but it would have to clear to something, wouldn't it? OK, thanks!

and CSailin - you're most welcome! There are a _lot_ of features on LT, and even ones I knew how to use perfectly well at one time may drop out of my memory. I always read these question posts, because either I can help or I learn something...or both, as in this case (I'd never known about the clear trick).

I would love to be able to use a widget on my Profile page here on LT. Is there any particular reason why they were made not to work like that? I don't have a blog or anywhere else I would use it.