When installing and setting up your widget(s) you need to determine how you want them to behave. Their behaviour is governed by their settings in yoursite.com/admin/layouts/widgets. Let’s go through each of them.
Position
This setting determines where the widget appears on the page. Currently there are only two options, “left” and “right”, which relate to the left and right sidebars. More positions may be added over time.
Order
Order determines the order widgets appear, within a common position, e.g. the order of the widgets in the left sidebar. You can use numbered positions, or “start” and “end” for dynamic positioning (e.g. if some widgets do not appear in certain contexts).
If widgets have the same order value, their order will be determined by the order they appear in /admin/layouts/widgets, however we do not recommend you rely on this. If you want to ensure a specific order, make sure this is represented in the order settings of the relevant widgets.
Context
Context is an “inclusive” setting that must be used for all widgets. You must select the contexts you want the widget to appear in. The “contexts” are the 4 main user-facing contexts in Discourse:
- Topic List
- Topic
- Profile
- Tags
Filter
Filter is an “exclusive” setting that, if used, restricts the widget to the specified filter(s). If you want the widget to appear for all filters leave this blank. The filters are:
- Latest
- Unread
- New
- Top
- Read
- Posted
- Bookmarks
- Categories
The categories homepage is arguably more of a “context” than a “filter”, but it is easier from a technical perspective to make it a filter. It is a unique aspect of the Discourse taxonomy.
Groups
Group is an “exclusive” setting that, if used, restricts the widget to the specified group(s). If you want the widget to appear for all groups leave this blank.
Categories
Categories is an “exclusive” setting that, if used, restricts the widget to the specified categories. If you want the widget to appear in all topic lists, regardless of category, leave this blank.
You can also specify “all categories”, which relates to the topic lists with all categories (shown as “all categories” in the Discourse category selector).
