WordPress Q: I lost the sidebar when added tag cloud

[Dan Klatt]

Hi Folks,

I'm not sure how to get this back and friends I've talked with don't seem to know how to help either.

The blog is at CarnegieCentre.com

A consultant I was working with was walking me through adding some widgets. Everything was set up fine until he was having me add the RSS feed widget and he thought I might want to add the tag cloud widget, too.

(He created the template for the blog and said he set it up for the RSS feed widget and all I had to do was add the widget, if I understand correctly.)

That widget I did not see displayed. Instead, after I added the tag cloud widget, the rest of the sidebar disappeared.

Can anyone give me the steps to get it back?

Thank you,
Dan

[Stefan Vee]

Maybe it's the template (theme)...
Here's a simple test:
Switch your current theme (temporarily) with "Wordpress Classic"
--> Click Appearance -> Wordpress Classic -->Activate
Does your sidebar display the selected widgets now?
If it does, then there's something wrong with your custom theme. Contact the creator.

[Sheryl Polomka]

Try removing the tags widget and see if the rest of the sidebar appears again. Just adding a tags widget shouldn't remove the rest of the sidebar so like Stefan said its probably a problem with the theme or with the RSS widget. Not too sure, but I would try removing the tags one and see what happens.

[VegasGreg]

Some themes have a few items hard coded into the sidebar if no widgets are used. Maybe you were using the default settings and then added just the tag widget to the sidebar.

Once you add a widget, all the default items go away, so you will have to add all the items/widgets to the sidebar that you want to see there.

[Dan Klatt]

Thanks everyone!

(Slowly I'm starting to get a feel for WordPress, and liking what I'm seeing.)

After reading what you said, Greg, I saw saw or found the list of all available widgets, such as Categories, Archives, and Links, and was able to add them.

Now it's (almost) working right.

I say "almost" because the RSS feed widget is getting an error.

That reminded me of another question I'd appreciate your help with.

Where can I find the RSS link?

As I recall, once I saw that it wasn't automatically added to the widget, I think I even searched WordPress.com for the link to use in the widget, and anywhere when promoting the blog.

Thanks,
Dan

[VegasGreg]

When you open up your WP RSS widget, you can enter any RSS Feed URL into that space that you want to show on your site's sidebar. You don't really want to use that to put your own RSS feed there as you can just use the 'Recent Posts' widget and it will load faster.

Your RSS feed = carnegiecentre.com/blog/?feed=rss2 (link located at the very bottom of your theme).

[Dan Klatt]

Thanks for your help, Greg. I'm getting more familiar, and comfortable, with using the Dashboard. And I appreciate everyone's help with this.

Warmly,
Dan