Thesis Tutorial – Adding header images to sidebar widgets

widget header images before Thesis Tutorial   Adding header images to sidebar widgets

Widget Header - Image Before

Today, I will be explaining how to get a background image for your widgets for Thesis theme. This is a very simple technique that anyone can do. Please make a back up of your custom.css file.

From the image attached (Before), you can see my donations widget.

Notice the widget header (tag <h3>) has a diffent colour font to the background, this can be done by reading my past post on Thesis Customizations – Unique Tips. It is also very easy to do, just takes a few seconds to see your changes.

What we are going to do is make an image the background of the widget header, sounds easy right. Well, it is :) With just a few seconds you can achieve this.

The first thing is to get your image button, you will have to create it yourself or you might have one.

I have choosen this image for my background. It has a piggy money bank with some notes and coins next to it. Although I made it a green colour, it looks very plain. I guess this is just an example so it’s ok :)

widget img donations2 Thesis Tutorial   Adding header images to sidebar widgets

You will be able to change the the following:

  • font size
  • font name
  • font normal or bold
  • font colour
  • height of the image for the header
  • and the image itself

There are a few options for you to look at and you might have to play around depending on your settings.

If I want to replace all widget headers with this back image, then I would use the following code:

.custom li.widget h3 {font-family: Comic Sans MS; font-weight: bold; color: #FFFFFF; font-size: 1.5em; height: 45px; background: url('/images/widget_img_donations2.png') no-repeat; padding:13px 20px 0;}

If you want to get a specific widget then it becomes a bit more technical:

BUT don’t worry, it’s still easy. You will need to view your source code of your site. For this purpose, I have choosen to chage the donations widget. I will have to search in my source code where the wording is and find the widgets class id. Once I have that, it’s easy.

The image below shows the class id as text-453310734, it’s highlighted with red. Yours could be different depending on which widget you are going to change.

Widget Header - Source Code

Widget Header - Source Code

The only difference between changing all and just a certain widget is the class id, before the curly bracket. The rest would be identical.

.custom li#text-453310734 h3 {font-family: Comic Sans MS; font-weight: bold; color: #FFFFFF; font-size: 1.5em; height: 45px; background: url('/images/widget_img_donations2.png') no-repeat; padding:13px 20px 0;}

The image below shows you the end result of what it should look like. You can always change the the image loacation if you want, the choice is yours.

Widget Header - Image After
Widget Header – Image After

Final Thought

I hope this has helped you understand Thesis more and what it is cappible of. I would like to hear feedback if some tried it and if it worked for you or not.

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This blog is using the Thesis theme & WordPress blogging platform. Customizations on this blog have been done by myself.

I currently freelance as a part-time web designer whereby I offer a variety of web related services. You could alternatively browse through my portfolio for examples of work completed.

{ 16 comments }

1 Barbara Ling, Virtual Coach September 4, 2009 at 11:30 am

Nice tutorial! Anything that helps people learn how to hack and customize their own theme is a great thing in my mind – losing the fear of touching code can really give bloggers some powerful abilities.
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2 George Serradinho September 4, 2009 at 11:39 am

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@Barbara – yes, bloggers have to be confident about making changes and seeing the results.

3 Compute Live September 4, 2009 at 2:24 pm

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Thanks for sharing Thesis customization tuts once again… I guess searching images for your sidebar content is a difficult one…
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4 George Serradinho September 4, 2009 at 4:09 pm

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@Compute Live – you could create your own ones. Try iconfinder.net for cool icons :)

5 Surender Sharma September 4, 2009 at 6:15 pm

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This is wonderful tutorial of Thesis theme.You can trained new bloggers and thesis lover fast.
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6 George Serradinho September 6, 2009 at 5:59 pm

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@Surender – thanks man, means a lot.

7 Tycoon Blogger September 5, 2009 at 4:23 am

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I am amazed at your knowledge of Thesis. Everytime I read your tutorial, I come one step closer to making the leap. Once I get a little time, I will probably make the switch.

BTW, thanks for the surprise in my ec account, much appreciated!
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8 George Serradinho September 6, 2009 at 6:04 pm

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@Tycoon – I finally made the choice and left Entrecard. I tried it and dropping is not me at this stage, I feel my time is better spent doing other things.

Don’t worry about the surprise, I gave out 11,000 EC out to people.

9 Thesis customization service September 6, 2009 at 5:58 am

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Hey Great tutorial George. This will come very handy :)
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10 George Serradinho September 6, 2009 at 5:47 pm

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@Harsh – hey, milk that keyword :)

11 Tech-Freak Stuff September 6, 2009 at 2:06 pm

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Cool tutorial! Customizing the header of widgets will make a normal thesis theme look a bit different. Thus, being the odd man out! And this is really needed in the Blogging world- UNIQUE IDEAS.

12 George Serradinho September 6, 2009 at 6:10 pm

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@Tech-Freak Stuff – The problem with header widgets, is if you have specific header widgets.

13 Ruchi September 7, 2009 at 6:35 am

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Nice tutorial . It seems easy. Keep on writing this kind of tutorials, it is helpful for all bloggers.
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14 George Serradinho September 7, 2009 at 7:12 am

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@Ruchi – thanks, I have a few coming out this month to help others out.

15 Somone October 30, 2009 at 10:41 am

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Hey George – another skin change. I like this design a lot. This is a great little tutorials. Tweaking your sidebars is one of the best and easiest ways to make your site unique.
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16 George Serradinho October 30, 2009 at 11:39 am

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@Somone – yes, the sidebars can change the look and feel of a site.

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