Links in text widget are not active – help!

Is this so elementary that everyone thinks I just a clod and not worth bothering with? I’ve looked at all the documentation. I have programmed for many years. I’m just not familiar with WordPress, and when I do what seems obviously the right thing, it doesn’t work.

In the case in point, I pasted the text from feedburner for establishing a link to an email subscription page. I also tried a general hyperlink code piece. In both cases, no active link. My site is roylat.com. Look at the bottom of the sidebar for “Jackson Forum.” This was entered as html hyperlink code in a text widget. But, only the text appears, not the underlying link.

Hola vtaylor100,
I just tried this and I’m able to do it.
I would make sure that your html code is correct.
example:
This is a link to whatever you want.
If the html code is not the issue, try switching your theme to the default one to see if it’s theme related…
Good luck!

Can you paste here what you put in the widget? Nothing shows up, even on view source.

Ah sorry, it was converted to a link…
Here is what I have
<a href="YourSiteAddress/">This is a link</a> to whatever you want.

Did you try putting in other text in there? Like This is a test or something banal like that?

Thanks for the help.

Here is what I currently pasted into the text widget at roylat.com:
Jackson Forum Blog

I then saved the changes. The text appears on the site, but again it is not active.
When I try to edit the text widget, only the text, not the HTML code is available for editing.

I did try this with the default them, but to no avail.

More thoughts?

Yes, I can put whatever text I want.
See this image for example.

What is the code you are using?

Try pasting something that IS NOT a link. Just paste in this This is a test. and see what shows up. It may be a problem with HTML in your text widget, or it may be the widget now showing anything. Can’t tell until both are tested.

Whoops,

on this post, my text was converted to a link, which is of course what I want to happen in my text widget. Here is the actual text before conversion, with href mis-spelled to stop the conversion.

‘Jackson Forum Blog‘

See if this gets it posted right.

Well, I can’t seem to get the html not to convert into a link. Suggestions?

Maybe “backticks” Here it is in backticks:

<a href="https://jacksonforum.org/blog/">Jackson Forum Blog</a>

When I paste in text in the widget, it appears as text just fine.

This is the code you should use:
<a href="https://jacksonforum.org/blog/">Jackson Forum Blog</a>

This looks like the code I pasted in above your last post. Am I missing a difference.

One thing I noted is that the text in the widget appears as html code after I finish entering it. I can return to edit it and see the html code again. As soon as I Save Changes for all widget editing (i.e., make the changes live), the html code disappears from the widget. It no longer shows up as an option for editing.

Well, I didn’t exactly resolve this, but I found a workaround. If I put html code on the second line of the text widget editing form, it is displayed as an active link! So, if I skip the first line and just use the second line, it comes out correctly. Weird.

You can see the result a roylat.com

Thanks for your efforts to help cipote and Ipstenu.

It sounds like you may have some plugin playing merry cob with that feature, but for the life of me I can’t imagine why! At least you got it working!

If I put html code on the second line of the text widget editing form, it is displayed as an active link!

Are you trying to put HTML in as the title of the text widget? Because the first line is the title, the box below that is the content.