Cookely registers 18 widget areas and ships 9 widgets of its own. This is how the Widgetized demo builds its homepage, and it’s still how the sidebar and footer work in every design.
Table of Contents
Go to Appearance → Widgets. Since WordPress 5.8 this is a block-based screen: each widget area is a panel you drop blocks into, and the classic widgets appear alongside the blocks in the inserter.
If you prefer the old drag-and-drop screen, install the Classic Widgets plugin — it restores it, and Cookely’s widgets work either way.
Homepage
Posts and pages
Header and footer
The four homepage areas are what make the Widgetized demo’s front page — that’s where the Featured Category and Carousel widgets go.
| Widget | What it does |
|---|---|
| Featured Category (Homepage) | A block of posts from one category, sized for the homepage |
| Featured Category | The same idea, sized for the sidebar |
| Carousel | A sliding row of posts |
| Popular Recipes (View Count) | Most-viewed posts |
| Popular Recipes (Comments Count) | Most-commented posts |
| Tabs | Popular / recent posts in a tabbed box |
| Recent Posts | A styled recent-posts list |
| Bio | Photo, short bio and a link — the “about me” box |
| Single Page | Pulls an excerpt and image from one page |
The Tabs widget is the odd one out: it doesn’t take widgets directly. Whatever you put in the WPZOOM: Tabs Widget Area shows up inside it.
The two Popular Recipes widgets have a Since filter — see Tabs Section in the Sidebar for what it actually filters, which is worth knowing before you rely on it.
To reproduce the demo’s widget setup in one step, go to WPZOOM → Theme Options → Miscellaneous, find the Widgets section, and click Load default widget settings:
Save any other Theme Options changes before clicking it. It replaces your current widget configuration, so it’s meant for a fresh site rather than one you’ve already set up.
See also:
