This Intermediate-level WordPress Tutorial shows how to add Flickr Photo Widget to your WordPress blog’s sidebar so that you can display thumbnails of your Flickr photos. The Flickr Widget comes with WordPress 2.5+ on the WordPress.com hosting site. Your WordPress theme also must support Widgets. If you have questions about Widgets, send me a comment by clicking on the Comments link (or using the form) at the bottom of this post.
If you google something like “wordpress photo sidebar widget”, you will find many ways to display photos in your WordPress sidebar. If there’s one you already use that you like, let us know! The nice thing about using WordPress.com for your blog/website is that things like the Flickr Photo Widget are installed automatically – or Automattically, if you prefer (a little WordPress pun, there). Check out the Automattic website if you have a minute to learn more about what the creators of WordPress are up to.
Before you can add the Flickr Photo Widget, you need to first create a Flickr account at Flickr.com and upload photos to the account. If you need a tutorial on how to do that, send me a comment.
After you create your Flickr account, this tutorial shows you how to add the Flickr Widget to your WordPress sidebar and insert the RSS address to display Flickr thumbnail images in your sidebar. The thumbnail images link to the full-size image in your Flickr account. Pretty cool!
Filed under: WordPress Tutorials | Tagged: flickr, image, intermediate, mcbuzz, photo, sidebar, tutorial, widget, WordPress |
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Hello! I am having a problem with my flickr widget. I’ve tried to find a solution for several days and it’s making me so frustrated 😉
My flickr widget works great with my own flickr photostream. No problem. But when I use it with my newly created flickr group pool, I get no pictures, just “more photos” link.
The mind boggling thing is that when I link it to this group pool: http://flickr.com/groups/cfcc/ it works fine! Any word of advice? Thank you so much…
I haven’t encountered this problem specifically, but I feel your pain because I am having a similar difficulty with the “Vodpod Widget”, which you can see in the sidebar at right.
The Vodpod Widget is great, but it does not do everything it is supposed to do. My hunch is that there is a glitch between wordpress.com hosting and the full functionality of the widget.
Since you are trying to use the pictures collected in a group pool, my guess is that there is something about the code required to do that job (vs. the standard photostream job) that wordpress.com hosting does not like – or does not know how to interpret.
Are there security settings that would keep the group pool RSS feed from working the same way the photostream RSS feed works?
Is this the RSS feed you are using?
http://api.flickr.com/services/feeds/groups_pool.gne?id=79997956@N00&lang=en-us&format=rss_200
Take a look here:
http://faq.wordpress.com/2006/12/24/using-the-flickr-widget/
and also try searching here:
http://faq.wordpress.com/
This is the RSS feed I am using:
http://api.flickr.com/services/feeds/groups_pool.gne?id=910985@N23&lang=en-us&format=rss_200
I took a look at the websites and I did find a problem…when I log out and then try going into my “pool” … the message I get is that there is nothing visible to me. No images to see. I need to log in to see them. So the problem is probably with my images and the privacy setting. I will keep exploring further.
Thanks so much for your help!
PS: When I go to the other pool that works with my flickr widget, it displays all images but mine.
[…] an interesting video on “Using Widgets in a Sidebar” check it out at the Business Blogging 101 site. I found this video and many others at the […]
Thanks for this tutorial! I was trying to post the actual photostream address into the flickr widget. You taught me to use the RSS feed address. This is not clear in the wordpress documentation…at least not to me.
I now have a flickr photo stream on my blog. Thanks!!!!
http://popfarming.wordpress.com/
Dan
POP Farmer
Portland, OR
Than you so much! This was very helpful tutorial for widget dummies like me 😉
please, man, 10 min for a feed????
@etervyte3000 Hello and thanks for commenting. I sense urgency in your comment / request, but I’m not sure what it means. Can you tell me a little more please? Thanks!
Mark
I have linked my flickr ac to my wordpress but from the flickr icon on the wp, all i get is a preview of my own wordpress page without any photos in flickr. I have tried to edit the widget but can’t seem to access that particular page at all.
@adeltbl
My guess is that you have not put the right RSS feed for the Flickr account into the WordPress widget. The tutorial shows where to find the RSS URL. Double check to be sure that you are picking up the correct feed and let me know what you find.
Note that the tutorial uses version 2.5 of WordPress, whereas you probably have version 2.7. In version 2.7, sidebar Widgets are in the Dashboard under Appearance > Widgets.
Mark
There were error messages from my IE whenenver i tried to access the widget. What i did then was to change a theme without widget and back to one that enabled widget. Copied the below RSS
http://api.flickr.com/services/feeds/photos_public.gne?id=37648126@N03&lang=en-us&format=rss_200
into it but still it did not display my flickr photos.
Previously i guess i copied the wrong one but i thot this would do the trick?
@adeltbl
Okay. That’s the right feed. Now I would suggest trying a different browser to edit the WordPress site. Have you tried http://firefox.com ? Security settings on IE might be messing things up. Hard to say. Install Firefox and give it a try.
I’m using the Flickr widget and it seems to be working…showing my photos and all. I was wondering though, if there’s a way to choose the photos shown or to show the most recent photos? I’ve chosen for the widget to show five of my photos. It seems to be showing only some of my most viewed (though not all of the top five and not in the right order). Seems a little random.
Any suggestions?
@songs on repeat
I agree that results can be random with this widget. Since it’s on WordPress.com, you can’t tweak the code yourself like you can when you install a widget on a “self-hosted” WordPress site. You can search for flickr widget on the wordpress.org support forums. You might also consider creating a separate Flickr account to include only the images you want to show in your widget. That’s not a great workaround, but it might do the trick while you look for other solutions. Sorry I don’t have a better solution. Let me know if you find one!
Hi- I’m so glad you have this tutorial, as wordpress itself was no help! So, I believe I’ve followed all of your instructions, but I am still only getting links to the photos, and the photos themselves are not showing up. I’m using WordPress.com, and firefox. My blog is http://www.KatonahGreen.com and I’m trying to get them to show up in the right sidebar.
Thanks!
Heather
I’m looking for the best way to be able to post Flickr photos actually IN the blog. Possible? Or only in the sidebar, using the Flickr widget?
Blog is at: http://whatishappeningchicago.wordpress.com/
Thanks,
Karla
Hi Karla,
Thanks for your question! To be able to put things like widgets into the body of a WordPress page (where you copy and paste code from sites like Flickr, Google, etc., iframes, JavaScript, and such), you need to have a self-hosted site. You can find good hosts here: http://wordpress.org/hosting/