The 15 New Custom Widgets

[Russell H.]

One of the first things you'll notice in the Widgets area (Admin/Appearance/Widgets) is that there are 15 Custom Widgets to work with.

We have put a TON of work into creating this panel and the way in which you can assign each new widget to one of 15 custom areas,.. PLUS the default *Header, *Featured Sidepanel, and *Featured Sidebar, & *Sidebar widget areas.

The first thing to do when working with this new system is to NOT get overwhelmed and keep it simple. To put that into perspective I can best explain it this way,...

Don't think of it as 15 new custom widgets that you somehow have to figure out how to use on your site. Think of it as it is... which is simply that you now have the option of creating different widgets (content) for the 1) Header, 2) CTA (arrow) box, 3)Featured Sidepanel, and 4)Default Sidebar. That's it in a nutshell... 4 widget areas only... BUT now you can have different content in those 4 widget areas on at least 15 different pages (plus the default widgets make it 16 different page content possibilities).
To put that into further perspective,... compare that with LocalBiz Vortex theme which only had one widget choice that dictated that the same content would show on every page on your site in those widget areas,.. but with VORTEX you can now show a different message and different content on every page just by using the different widgets.
For example,.. let's say you had a site for a real estate business that ran a specialist page on the topic of legal services for buyers and sellers. In that case you could then feature advertising banners or custom messages, buttons, or video in the widget areas of 1) Header, 2) CTA (arrow) box, 3)Featured Sidepanel, and 4)Default Sidebar for that particular page only.

Simple Steps To Implementation: Decide what custom content you'd like to show on any particular page. You might be happy with the default CTA (arrow) box and leave it, but perhaps want some custom content in say the Featured Sidepanel and the Default Sidebar.
In that case you could use "Custom Widget 1" for the Featured Sidepanel, and "Custom Widget 2" for the Default Sidebar. So you'd insert that custom content (using your available widgets in the widget library) into "Custom Widget 1 and 2" and then in the page editor for your "Legal Services" page you'd nominate those 2 custom widgets (Custom Widget 1 and 2) to be used for both the Featured Sidepanel and the Default Sidebar areas using the check box available within the "Vortex: Layout Options" panel on the page editor (if you can't see that panel then you might need to check the display box for it in "Screen Options" in the drop down menu at the top of the page editor.

IMPORTANT: When first dragging (or assigning via the click adder we created) a new widget into one the 15 custom widget areas, you'll need to click "save" on the new widget before you can open it up and edit it. Then once its been edited, click save and it is ready to assign to a page.