How do I manage my testimonials?

Many of the features described in this article were added in an update that is being used only on sites built after the 24th October 2012. If the Settings link is not visible in the Testimonials menu, this means you have an older version. If you wish to receive the extra functionality included in the new version, contact Magicdust Support.

All Magicdust eWeb 2.0 sites come with a great testimonials management system that allows your to display what your happiest customers are saying about you on your website.

When you log in to your Dashboard you will see a Testimonials menu in the sidebar.

This is where you can add the testimonials into the system, edit them, delete them and change some settings that affect how they are displayed.

View your Testimonials

To view your Testimonials click on Testimonials > Testimonials and you will be presented with a list of testimonials. This is where you can view the Testimonials you've added. By default there will be 3 dummy testimonials with placeholder text. Feel free to edit or delete these.

Editing and Adding Testimonials

When you are on the testimonials list, to edit a testimonial, just click on it. To add a new one click the Add New button up the top, next to the title. You can also add testimonials by clicking Testimonials > Add New in the sidebar from anywhere in the dashboard.

When editing or adding a testimonial you will see this screen, which is very similar to your page editor, but with a few key differences.

The title area is where you want to enter the name of the person giving the testimonial. The editor area is where you put the testimonial itself.

On the right you will see a Company field, whatever you write in here will appear on a line underneath the title/name. It's a good place to put the company the person works for, however you can put whatever you want in here, such as the clients location or industry.

The Set featured image link allows you to upload an image that you can place on testimonials as a small thumbnail.

Once you have completed all these field, click the blue Publish button on the right.

Displaying Testimonials

To display your testimonials on a page, you need to use the testimonials shortcode (see the What are shortcodes? article).

The shortcode is a small piece of text you can place on a page that will generate a list of testimonials on the live page.

To add it, simply edit the page you want to display your testimonials on and add the text: [testimonials]. Like this:

The default shortcode will list your testimonials on the page in reverse chronological order, in two columns, like this:

With a thumbnail a testimonial will look like this:

However, you can change the output of the shortcode by adding extra attributes. A list of accepted attributes and their accepted values follows:

• columns
  Determines how many columns the list will be in.
  Any number between 1 and 5. Default: 2.
• thumbnails:
  Show or hide thumbnail images.
  'off' or 'no'. Default: on.
• order:
  Determines what order the testimonials will be in.
  'random', 'ascending', 'oldest' or 'reverse'. Default: descending.
• orderby:
  Determines the list is ordered by.
  'name'. Default: date.
• number:
  Limit how many testimonials are displayed.
  Accepts any number.

Examples:
If you want to use any of these, just copy and paste the shortcode into your page, beginning and ending with the square bracket.

• All testimonials in alphabetical order in 2 columns: [testimonials orderby=name]
• All testimonials in reverse alphabetical order in 2 columns: [testimonials orderby=name order=reverse]
• 4 random testimonials in 3 columns: [testimonials order=random columns=3 number=4]
• 15 testimonials in a single column, oldest first: [testimonials columns=1 number=15 order=oldest]

In addition to the shortcode, you can also place testimonials in any widget area, like your sidebar or footer.

To do this, from your Dashboard, go to Appearence > Widgets. In the Available Widgets section you will see two testimonials related widgets: Magicdust Testimonials and Magicdust Featured Testimonial.

These two widgets can be used to display your testimonials in a variety of ways. The Magicdust Testimonials widget allows you to display any given number of either Random or Latest testimonials, while the Magicdust Featured Testimonial widget allows you to display a single specific testimonial.

The output of the widget typically looks like this:

Each widget also shares the Display Thumbnails checkbox, which allows you to show or hide the featured image thumbnail that you can assign to testimonials.

You will also notice that each widget has a Read More Text field. This field allows you to create a link at the bottom of the widget's output that links to a page containing the rest of your testimonials. Whatever text you enter into this field will become a link to the rest of your testimonials.

To tell the widget which of your pages has your testimonials on it, go to Testimonials > Settings from the Dashboard sidebar. Here you can use a dropdown menu to pick which page these links will go to.