Layers Social Icons Widget
The Layers Social Icons Widget available in Layers Pro can be used in any widget area in your theme to display a custom set of social network buttons linking to your social media profiles around the web.
Design Bar
When you add a new Social Icons widget, or if you have created a page using one of the Preset layouts that use this widget, it will display with some default settings and content.
The design bar, located on the right side of the widget, controls the overall style and layout for the widget.
1 – Layout
This section sets the Widget’s overall size
Boxed will limit the width of the widget to align with your content. This option is best set in combination with the Boxed Layout in your Site and Header settings.
Full Width will allow the slider to span the entire browser window and is the default.
When using this widget in a normal sidebar widget area, Full Width should be selected.
2 – Background
The background option affects the widget background and will span full width of the page.
Background Color
Click SELECT COLOR to bring up the color wheel to choose a color. You may optionally enter a color manually using its HEX code.
- Background colors should match any background image you set, as the darkness or lightness of the color will determine whether the widget title and description area is black or white by default.
Backround Image
Click CHOOSE IMAGE and upload or select an image to fill the widget container with something other than a solid color.
- Textures, photos and images without embedded text are best.
- Full-size images should be at least 1920px wide and as tall as the space it intends to fill to ensure highest quality at all screen sizes.
- Tiles or repeatable images can be any size you want.
When you set a background image, the following settings will appear:
Background Repeat
Choose Repeat only if you want your image to tile. Best used with small patterns and textures.
Background Position
This option aligns your image and can help you adjust the placement of the subject of your background if needed.
Top will display it from Top-down, Bottom from bottom-up, Left from top-left and right from top-right. Center is the absolute center and is usually best.
Parallax
Parallax allows your background image to stay in place while the site is scrolled. For Parallax to work well, your background image must be on Repeat, or be at least 300px taller than the widget’s height to allow for scrolling.
Stretch
Check this option if you want your image to always fill the slide at all screen sizes. This is helpful if your image is less than 1908px but should not be used on images below 1600px or you risk significant quality loss at higher resolutions.
Widget Content
3 – Widget Title & Description
Sets a heading for the widget, appearing above your accordions, and may be left blank.
Click the button to choose your alignment, size and color:
Heading Type
This option allows you to choose the heading tag to wrap your title, H3 by default. The heading tag does not impact SEO ranking or change the heading size by default, though it can be used in child themes or custom styling to allow selecting special heading styles such as jumbo headings, fancy headings etc.
For best results we recommend keeping these H2 or H3 to ensure your site outline reads well for visitors on accessibility devices.
Text Align
The Text align option will affect the alignment of the widget Title and Description. Choose from Left, Centered, Right or Justified
Text Size
Choose from Small, Medium or Large.
Each size option is pre-configured with optimal balance, line height and font-size combinations and will vary depending on your font choice in Site Settings, or custom styling added through a Style Kit or Child Theme.
Text Color
Depending on the background color of the content area, your text will be black or white by default, but can be customized here.
Click on SELECT COLOR to expand the color wheel and click to select a color from the palette or enter an HTML hex value.
Description
The Description field will display just below the widget title above the widget content. Clicking into the description will activate the rich text editor to aid you in formatting your content, and supports basic HTML input via the Code </>view, much like the WordPress post editor.
For best results, limit the description to 1-3 sentences to introduce the content in this section of your layout. This field may optionally be left blank.
- You cannot put scripts into this field such as javascript snippets
- You should not paste text/html from Word or other text editors into this field or it may carry over unpredictable code that causes formatting issues.
- Shortcodes are OK, but the element pulled in may not jive well with the widget limitations and may be best in a column or require Advanced CSS styling.
Customizing Widget Text Content
4 – Buttons
Each button has an individual Button Option panel and a list of icons to choose from.
- Select the icon corresponding to the social network you want this button to link to
- Click the Button Option to customize the background style, color, and text color, if desired. This is helpful if you want to give the icons their branded colors for better recognition:
The buttons control relates to the clickable part of each accordion.
Size
Select from Small, Medium, Large or Massive to set the overall height of each accordion toggle. You can also add padding with borders, explained in a bit.
Background Style
Choose from Solid, Transparent, or Gradient.
- If Gradient is chosen, you will be prompted to choose the Gradient Starting color and Gradient End color, and the angle for the colors to fade.
- If Solid is chosen, you will be prompted to choose a Background Color
Text Color
Choose a color for the title of each accordion toggle.
Text Shadow
Choose from Bottom, Top or None. Adds a subtle shadow that blends to any background color.
Text Transform
Choose from:
- –Choose– (Uses theme default styling)
- Uppercase (ALL BIG LETTERS),
- Capitalize (Each Word Begins With a Capital Letter)
- Lowercase (all small letters)
Border Width
Slide the toggle to increase or decrease the border or enter a pixel value. Set to 0 for no border.
Tip: If you want to add padding to your selected button size, you can do so with the border option and a border color that matches your button background color.
Border Color
If the border is enabled, choose a border color.
Rounded Corner Size
Slide the toggle to increase or decrease the rounded edges of the accordions.
- For square corners, set it to 0.
- For “pill” style accordions, set it to 100.
Button Shadow
Choose from None, Small, Medium or Large. Adds dimension with a drop-shadow that automatically blends to your background color.
7 – Advanced Styling
This section is intended for front-end designers or individuals who are comfortable working with CSS. It allows you to create a custom class and add some custom css that will load only when a widget with this class is loaded. This is useful in cases where you want to style widgets differently from one another and want the styling to be saved in the page’s export data. This has advantages over using the global CSS area when creating style kits, for example.
You may also increase or decrease widget padding and margins here.
If you are new to CSS or WordPress, you can disregard the Advanced button, although some of our Tutorials will provide you with instructions and some codes snippets to get you started with using this feature.
See How to Use the Advanced Design Bar Option to Add Custom Classes to Widgets
8 – Adding and Deleting Accordions
To add more sections, simply click the +ADD NEW ACCORDION bar. This will duplicate your previous section to help speed up customization.
To delete a section, click the pencil icon in the right corner of the accordion and click the red trash can icon.
Save your layout any time by clicking SAVE & PUBLISH
6 – Adding and Deleting Buttons
To add more icons, simply click +ADD NEW Button . This will duplicate your previous button to help speed up customization.
To delete a button, click the pencil icon in the right corner of the button panel and click the red trash-can icon.
Save your layout any time by clicking SAVE & PUBLISH
7 – Advanced
This section is intended for front-end designers or individuals who are comfortable working with CSS. It allows you to create a custom class and add some custom css that will load only when a widget with this class is loaded. This is useful in cases where you want to style widgets differently from one another and want the styling to be saved in the page’s export data. This has advantages over using the global CSS area when creating style kits, for example.
You may also increase or decrease widget padding and margins here.
If you are new to CSS or WordPress, you can disregard the Advanced button, although some of our Tutorials will provide you with instructions and some codes snippets to get you started with using this feature.
See How to Use the Advanced Design Bar Option to Add Custom Classes to Widgets
For customization tips, troubleshooting and general Layers Help, see the Layers User Guide
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