Widgets - lets get widgety
Here I've tried to simply explain what each of the standard widgets allows you to do, so read all or just those that interest you and lets get widgety...
Pages
Top of the widget list is 'Pages' a simple and self explanatory widget which shows the pages of your site. Many of the themes will have the pages across the top of your blog, but using this widget you can decide which pages to be shown and which should be hidden. I personally don't see the point of this widget with my chosen theme, but I'm sure that it has it's uses on some themes, as a developed it's certainly an option I'd want to offer users, but wouldn't expect them to use it.
Calendar
A very simple widget, a calendar appears on your blog and whenever a post is posted, the date highlights on the calendar allowing readers to quickly see when posts where written and jump to the posts posted on that date. Interestingly, whilst writing this I notice that my calendar doesn't allow the user to move from month to month, I would guess this is simple down to the fact that I have no posts more than two days old and obviously no blogs magically posted in the future (though you can set posts to be posted at a future date - cool)
Archives
This cool little widget basically archives your posts into months, you can decide if you want a list of months or a drop down, you can also decide if you want a post count next to each month, so anybody who wants to go post crazy and show the world will opt to have this feature on.
Links
This widget confused me at first, the fancy name blogroll and the already listed links back to WordPress made me think that it was simply a list of links for WordPress - why would my readers be interested in that I wondered?? But the great news is its more than an advertisement for WordPress, it is a list of links which you can control to promote your favourite bloggers or websites. First add it to your selected widgets and then visit the 'Links' section on the left within your control panel, here you can add more links, and you can decide if a link is visible on the blog or not. You can even split your links into categories which on my theme is presented as two separate lists. Now links to sites and blogs are always a good thing, so if you like a blog or a site and would be willing to tell a friend, add it to your list, then they get credit from the Search Engines and more people are likely to see the site or blog you enjoyed and recommended.
Meta
To be entirely honest, right now I'm not sure what this widget offers other than a link for the administrator to get in and out of your control panel and to the RSS feeds, I personally have it turned on so that I don't have to remember the log in url (which isn't that hard) - If I discover more about this widget I promise to share.
Search
Well it does what it says on the tin, places a search option on your blog.
Recent Posts
Again, its on the tin, it adds a list of your most recent posts, there is a control to the number of posts to display with a maximum number set at 15.
Tag Cloud
When you post, you'll find that you can associate tags with the blogs, a tag is like a keyword, it's a tool to highlight the main points/topics of the post. The tag cloud collects the main tags used with in your blog over time and allows users to select a tag and view all posts relating to this tag - this is a widget I like and currently is a very popular gimmick used on loads of sites. I'm sure some SEO gurus will highlight the fact that it helps users to carry the main keywords through their site (or at least where the tag cloud is present)
Categories
Again I'd say this is pretty much self explanatory, it allows you to show the list of categories within which you have organised your posts, you can again display as a drop down list or a fully visible list whilst also showing the hierarchy - so categories within categories are made clear to the user and of course for the blog heavy you can show your post count
Text
Having only briefly played with this widget, I believe it simply allows the user to post some text within one of the columns - I guess you may want to announce something or write some welcome text to the users.
RSS
Rss feeds and readers are great ways of getting the latest news within your industry or area of interest straight to your blog, or you can publish your own feeds so that your readers get your latest post delivered straight to them (using an RSS reader) alerting them to your latest blog and bringing them back to your blog to read the whole post. I think RSS feeds are great and certainly worth using when your ready.
Recent Comments
This simple displays a list of the recent comments posted on your blog. Again it is possible to control the amount of comments displayed with a maximum of 15 allowed.
