WordPress.com Sidebar Image Width

This blog is about widgets: widgets in the general sense of the term, of which WordPress sidebar widgets are a specific case. (See the previously-posted Primer for two definitions of widget, and note that in this post, as in that earlier post, I’m using the first and more general definition.) But when developing widgets, it’s important to be aware that they are likely to find homes in blog sidebars.

So how wide are blog sidebars? One way to approach the question is to gather data about blog sidebar width, or, better, find some already-gathered data. One of the best sources of data about blog themes is engtech’s review of WordPress.com themes.

The table is this post is drawn from the comprehensive tables included in engtech’s very thorough reviews. Image width denotes the maximum width of an image in pixels. Although the number I went looking for is the one for the sidebar, I’ve also included the corresponding number for content: it provides a context for the sidebar number, and it will also be useful in its own right for widget-sizing purposes.

The table below shows that 17 of the 21 themes fall between 160px and 230px in terms of maximum sidebar image width, with 11 of those falling between 170 and 200. So much for the above-the-table summary; I’ll see you below the table if you want to stay for for detailed discussion.

Theme	Content image width	Sidebar image width
Shocking Blue Green	Screen	180
Blix	450	200
Regulus	460	200
Sandbox	Screen	200
Kubrick	450	190
Pressrow	540	230
Andreas04	Screen	140
Andreas09	Screen	180
Connections	510	170
Pool	550	170
Cutline	640	220
Rounded	640	310
Day Dream	430	160
Light	460	210
Rubrick	640	160
Solipsus	380	200
Supposedly Clean	360	Can’t add images
Chaotic Soul	490	200
Tarski	510	180
Unsleepable	500	130
K2-lite	500	220

I should admit that the data are dated and limited, drawn as they are from 2-year-old (i.e. late 2006) posts about the themes then available at WordPress.com. But I suspect an analysis of WordPress (including, but not limited to, WordPress.com) themes popular today would show a similar pattern.

My thanks to engtech, who really is a blogging hero. That reminds me, a comment on his theme reviews suggested that the data be put into a wiki, and the wiki maintained, as ongoing documentation of the themes available at WordPress.com. It was, and remains, a great idea, so if you feel strongly that there should be such documentation, start the wiki, let me know, and I’ll link to it.

Primer

This is a primer/FAQ on Clearspring Widgets at WordPress.com. It’s a sort of keynote post for this blog.

What is WordPress.com? WordPress.com is a web site that provides free hosting for WordPress blogs. It is different from WordPress.org. At your WordPress.com blog, you can’t use javascript and you can’t use Flash: to be more specific, you can’t use them directly.

What is a widget? Given what we’re trying to understand here, we need two definitions. We’ll start with the more general.

1. To Clearspring, a widget is just a chunk of HTML, Javascript, a Flash SWF, or an image, designed to be delivered modularly and shared across the web.
2. At WordPress.com, “Widget” is just a fancy word for tools and content that you can add, arrange, and remove from the sidebar area of your blog.

From this point on, widget refers to definition 1, with WordPress widget being used to refer to definition 2.

What is Clearspring? Clearspring is a platform for distributing, tracking, monetizing and sharing dynamic web application components and content, also called widgets. Let me translate: Clearspring enables you to do almost anything with widgets. The main reason I use almost is that Clearspring doesn’t enable you to create widget content.

Is it time for an example of a Clearspring widget? You asked for it…

Are there other widget platforms? Why focus on Clearspring? Yes, but Clearspring is the one for which there is a WordPress.com shortcode.

What’s a WordPress.com shortcode? There is an FAQ page that answers this, and lists available shortcodes. But for the purposes of this primer, we can do better than (the current edition of) that page, which doesn’t list the clearspring_widget shortcode. The most interesting shortcodes, including the clearspring_widget shortcode, allow you to post content you couldn’t otherwise post to your WordPress.com blog. For example, using Clearspring requires javascript, which WordPress.com doesn’t allow; but the shortcode invokes the required javascript, and only that script.

Clearspring widgets can be used at WordPress.com. So what? There are at least three reasons why this is good news.

1. Web services with javascript widgets can make those widgets available to WordPress.com bloggers. For example, the music service Lala has done this.
2. Even when the web service hasn’t made its widgets available at WordPress.com, others can use Clearspring to make them available. For example, I’ve done this for Goodreads.
3. You can create your own widgets and publish them to your WordPress.com blog, as well to as to pretty much any other site. I’ve done this; in fact, it’s how the example widget got on to this page.

How does Springrolled fit into this?There are several ways in which Springrolled could fit in. Each of the first three follows on from one of the answers to the previous question.

1. Identify the widgets that use the clearspring_widget shortcode. That might be better done by the folks at Clearspring or at WordPress.com, but if neither of them do it, I probably will.
2. Wrap up javascript (and Flash) widgets using Clearspring for fellow WordPress.com bloggers to use. You probably won’t be surprised to hear that I call this springrolling.
3. Develop custom widgets for use at WordPress.com and elsewhere.
4. Provide further explanation of Clearspring, which raises the awful prospect of The Clearspring Chronicles, Volume 2. Or there might be just an inoffensive post or two on widget development.

It’s clear to me (and my family) that I’d need to charge for the 2nd and 3rd of these. Charging would make this a business blog. I think it would be the kind of business blog that’s welcome on WordPress.com, but I have contacted support to check.

Creating in KickApps

This isn’t meant to be a good-looking widget. Rather, it’s meant to show that widgets can be created in KickApps and published to WordPress.com. At the moment, it shows nothing of the sort… hmm…

Goodreads Widget