Inserting gadgets

Gadgets are tools that you can add to a page on your website which will automatically display specific information from your Wild Apricot database. This information is also accessible via Functional pages so gadgets are basically little 'windows' into the same data which can be embedded into other pages, e.g. regular Content pages vs. functional pages.

At present we have 6 types of gadgets:

1) Upcoming events
2) Recent blog posts
3) Forum updates
4) Donation goal

5) Custom form gadget - for inserting HTML forms
6) Custom HTML gadget - for creating nicely formatted text blocks\

Adding a gadget

You can add a gadget to any page on your site. When editing a web page place your cursor on the page where you'd like to place your gadget, and then click on Insert gadget. You will then get a drop-down list of available gadgets.

Regardless of the type of gadget you are using, there are two sections on the configuration screen:

Gadget details

This defines what information is going to be displayed in the gadget. All gadget types have the following details:

• Title
• Default message - A message which is shown when there is no information for the gadget. For example, if you set up a gadget to display upcoming events, and you have none planned right now, you could set your default message to display "No events scheduled. Please check back later"

Events

This will display upcoming events along with their date, location, and a link to details page for the event.

If a visitor to the site does not have access to the event (i.e. there are only registration types for members), they will still see the event in the gadget. When they try to register they will be given an "Authorization required" message and prompted to log in.

The events gadget simply links to events on an "events calendar page", so make sure there is a visible "Events Calendar Page" that shows the event (see: Publishing your event calendar).  If the event does not show up on any events calendar pages (e.g. the calendar page is set to show only specific tagged events, which this event is not a part of) then the gadget links will not work and you will get an error message.

You have the following options available for Events.

• Show next events - Choose an number of events that you want displayed on the gadget
• Show events
  • All events
  • Filtered by tags - Choose which events are displayed based on the tags that you have created in each event.

Blog posts

For blogs, this will display the most recent posts from your site's blogs with their posting date and the name of the poster (linking to their profile if applicable) as well a link to the posting.

You have the following options available:

• Show last posts - Choose a number of recent blog posts (from your selected blogs) that you want to displayed on the gadget.
• Show blogs
  • All blogs
  • Selected blogs. - Choose from a list of blog pages on your site.

Forum topics

Gadgets for forums will display the most recently updated topics (i.e. topics with the most recent comments) - along with posting date and the name of the poster (linking to their profile if applicable). The topic title links to the appropriate topic in the forum.

You have the following options available:

• Show last topics - Choose a number of recent topics (from the forums you select)that you want to displayed on the gadget.
• Show forums
  • All forums
  • Selected forums - Choose from a list of forums on your site.

Donation goal

This will display a meter to track your fundraising efforts.

 
You have the following options available:

• Goal - The target that you are trying to reach
• Filter by
  • All Donations
  • Filtered by fields - Only show donations where custom field selection meets a certain criteria; useful when running multiple fundraising campaigns.
• Target period - Track donations sent in during the specified date range.
• Description text - A brief description of the fundraising campaign
• Link to donation page - This will make a button appear to take the visitor to the specified donation page. If you do not want a button to appear, select "None".
  

Custom Form & Custom HTML Gadget

The Custom Form and the Custom HTML gadget work in a similar way,

• The Custom Form gadget allows you to insert a HTML form on your website. You would use this to add a items such as Wufoo.com forms, aWeber forms, and PayPal buttons.
• The Custom HTML gadget allows you to enter content that will be shown with inside a box that has the same design as your other gadgets. Useful for styling things like YouTube videos or special announcements.

Gadget view

You can customize the look of your gadget here. Most of the time it will be automatically configured to match your website's style, but you can specify different looks for your gadget.

• Style - "Theme" styles are based on selected website theme and will automatically update if you change your theme, while "Common" styles are independent of your theme.
• Width - You can either set it to a fixed pixel width (which makes it the same size no matter what size the webpage is) or to auto (which will re-size the gadget width based on the available width).

Any change you make to the details or view will be immediately reflected in the area labeled Example in the Gadget View column.

Editing the gadget

Once you have created the gadget you can edit it by

1. Selecting the gadget and then clicking the Gadget settings button in the tool bar (this button replaces the Insert gadget button). This lets you change the configuration on the gadget.
2. Hovering your mouse over the gadget until the "Settings" menu option pops up in the lower right hand side of the gadget.
3. Clicking and dragging on the edges of the gadget. This lets you resize the gadget to a specific width (while height is determined automatically by its contents) Clicking on the gadget will also display an X in the upper right corner which can be used to delete the gadget.

Sample gadgets

Please note that gadgets are updated every time the page is loaded. For example, if you add an event while a visitor to you site is looking at a page with a gadget, it will not show up on the list until they refresh the page.