Hey guys,
In the blog sidebar of my website you’ll see the Recent Posts Widget.
How can I customize the look of this widget?
sorry, not sure what you mean by customizing the look… can you explain?
you can change what data is show by turning on and off components… see: https://simple-press.com/documentation/codex/plugins/our-plugins/the-template-tags-plugin/recent-posts-widget/
you can also add html before and after elements as described there…
if you just want to style, you can add css elements to your wp theme stylesheet to change the appearance… since the forum stylesheets are not loaded on non forum pages and the widget may be, we dont have styles for it…
Gotcha. I will try CSS.
I actually just noticed that the Recent Forum Posts is only displaying in the sidebar for users who are logged into the site.
How can I have it display for all users?
it follows the permissions of your forum… if guests can view posts in the forum, they can view the recent posts…
Gotcha.
Is it possible to display the widget to regular old website visitors, who are not users?
This would increase conversion big time on my site.
As it stands I am afraid not. Would need a bit of special coding. As far as these sort of things are concerned then the permissions and security of the posts is paramount in SP and strictly adhered to.
So it may be possible…
Any recommendations where I can find someone to do the special coding?
Thank you!
rather than custom coding, have you looked into the sneak peek feature? it allows you to show forum titles and/or topic titles to users but they wont be able to see posts… this allows the recent posts widget to function too… we use it here – try as guest…
Sounds promising.
Will the sneak peek feature show forum titles and topic titles to regular old website visitors who are not registered as any sort of user?
Yes everyone will be able to see titles and topics but not enter them. It does mean that unregistered people will be able to see the forum, but I’m guessing that as your forum is behind a pay wall, they will only be able to get to it through typing the URL.
Take a look and give it a try – Forum > Components > Custom Messages. It gives you the specifics in the ‘Help’ popup bubble of the sneak peek panel.