BadgeOS LearnDash Add-on vs Widget Areas for LearnDash

The “BadgeOS LearnDash Add-on” allows learners to earn achievements and badges from virtually every course, lesson and quiz activity available in the LearnDash learning management system. When activated, BadgeOS admins will see a new “LearnDash Activity” menu in their “Required Steps” manager when editing or creating any achievement or badge. Note: You will need to install the free BadgeOS plugin™ (version 1.2 or higher) to use the BadgeOS LearnDash Add-on. You will also need the LearnDash plugin v1.4 or higher installed, available from LearnDash.com. Get the BadgeOS plugin. Get the LearnDash plugin. BadgeOS™ turns your WordPress site into an achievement and badging system. And with LearnDash enabled on your site, badges are not only awarded by activities such as making submissions, earning points, completing required achievements, and making site and community contributions, but also by completing LearnDash courses, lessons, courses and quizzes. Define the achievements, organize the badge requirements any way you like, and choose from and combine a range of BadgeOS and LearnDash activity options to determine whether each task or requirement has been achieved. Earned badges are Open Badge compatible and sharable via Credly, the free web service for displaying, storing and managing lifelong achievement. New ways to define achievements and give badges for LearnDash activity In addition to all of the out-of-the-box features in BadgeOS core, the BadgeOS LearnDash Add-on allows you to award achievements and badges based on these additional triggers: Course Purchase: Purchase a specific Course Purchase any Course LearnDash Group: Enrolled into a specific LearnDash group Enrolled any LearnDash group Courses: Complete a specific Course Complete any Course Complete a course having a specific Tag Complete a course having any tag Lessons: Complete a specific Lesson Complete any Lesson Complete a lesson having specific tag Complete a lesson having any tag Topics: Complete a specific Topic Complete any Topic Complete a topic having specific tag Complete a topic having any tag Quizzes: Pass a specific Quiz Pass any Quiz Pass quiz having specific tag Pass quiz having any tag Achieve a minimum percent grade on a specific Quiz Achieve a minimum percent grade on any Quiz Fail a Quiz (i.e. useful for rewarding the passing of a previously failed quiz) Fail a specific Quiz Fail quiz having specific tag Fail quiz having any tag Assignments: Upload an assignment Upload an Assignment to a Specific Lesson Upload an Assignment to a Specific Course Approve an Assignment Approve an Assignment of a Specific Lesson Approve an Assignment of a Specific Course Combine LearnDash Steps with BadgeOS Steps in Defining Achievements Simple interface for defining the “Required Steps” for any badge or achievement seamlessly integrates LearnDash actions Easily define achievements that rely on both BadgeOS required steps and LearnDash actions Easily link together one or more triggers, steps or actions into the conditions needed to earn any badge or mark an achievement. LearnDash Badges are Lifelong Achievements with Credly Integration As badges are earned on WordPress using BadgeOS and LearnDash, they can be automatically sent to Credly for lifelong storage, management, and sharing on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Mozilla Backpack, the earner’s own web site, blog, or Credly profile. Badges you create in BadgeOS automatically appear and update on Credly, the home for storing and managing lifelong achievements. As with the BadgeOS core plugin, LearnDash badges are Mozilla Open Badge (OBI) compatible through integration of the “Open Credit” API by Credly, the free web service for issuing, earning and sharing badges. Use the Credly iOS app to issue LearnDash badges you created on your WordPress/BadgeOS/LearnDash site. **Display Badges on User Profiles with Free Community Add-on ** Activate the free “BadgeOS Community Add-On” and “BuddyPress” plugins to add a range of user community functions, including the ability to display earned badges and achievements on user profiles for others to see. Extensibility and Additional BadgeOS Add-ons BadgeOS is designed to be a true operating system for turning any WordPress site into an engagement management application. Built with expandability in mind to allow virtually anything to trigger and recognize achievement. BadgeOS plans to continue to release a range of Add-Ons to the plugin — like the BadgeOS LearnDash Add-on — that enhance core functionality with specialized functions. Check out some of the BadgeOS customizations we’ve already implemented to get a sense for what you might expect. Stay Connected / Helpful Links BadgeOS is made available by LearningTimes, LLC. Here are some ways to stay connected and to see what else we are up to: BadgeOS.org – Contact Us, Video Tutorials, Examples, News LearningTimes – Bringing people together through engaging online conferences, events and activities. Facebook – LearningTimes on Facebook Twitter – LearningTimes Tweets E-Mailing List – Occasional updates via e-mail GitHub – Report issues, contribute code

Widget Areas for LearnDash simply gives you more places to add custom content in LearnDash. By utilizing built-in LearnDash action hooks, we assign widget areas (also known as “sidebars”) to various locations throughout your LearnDash pages. Available LearnDash Widget Areas Focus Mode: Sidebar: Above Navigation Focus Mode: Sidebar: Below Navigation Focus Mode: Content: Start Focus Mode: Below Content Course Page: Content: Start Course Page: Content: End Group Page: Content: Start Group Page: Content: End Requires the “LearnDash 3.0” Active Template. Tested with LearnDash 4.23. How to Use Upon activating the plugin, new widget areas will appear on the Appearance > Widgets screen in your WordPress admin area. You can also access them via the Customizer (Appearance > Customize > Widgets). Simply add the blocks/widgets you’d like to insert into the corresponding widget areas. Be sure to click the “Save” button at the bottom. Navigate to a page that contains that widget area, refresh, and your new widgets will be there. Types of Content to Add WordPress comes with a set of default widgets, several of which might be useful. If you’re using the new block editor, all blocks will also be available to you. Add a simple Paragraph block with some basic text Add an Image or Video/Embed block for more visual content Add a Navigation Menu widget to insert a custom menu you’ve created Add your own Custom HTML widget to embed an or write your own code TIP: You can use the LearnDash Student and LearnDash Visitor blocks to display a block’s contents only to enrolled students or unenrolled visitors. LearnDash Widgets LearnDash comes prepackaged with a few widgets, but there’s probably only one that makes sense in these widget areas. Add a Course Progress Bar to the top or bottom of your Focus Mode sidebar Feel free to experiment with the other LearnDash widgets. Elementor Templates If you’re using Elementor Pro, you can create a custom section and embed it anywhere on your site, including in your new LearnDash widget areas. There are two ways to do this: When you go to insert a block/widget, select the Elementor Library widget. Choose a template from the dropdown menu. Click “Save.” Navigate to Templates > Saved Templates. Copy the shortcode next to the template you want to insert. Now you’ll insert a Shortcode block into the widget area, and paste the shortcode. For more information, see the article in Elementor’s knowledge base. Widget Area CSS Class Names If you need to target the widget areas to apply custom styles using CSS, you can use the following class names. All widget areas have the .ldx-widget-area class. Focus Mode: Sidebar: Above Navigation – .ldx-widget-area.fm-nav-before Focus Mode: Sidebar: After Navigation – .ldx-widget-area.fm-nav-after Focus Mode: Content: Start – .ldx-widget-area.fm-content-start Focus Mode: Below Content – .ldx-widget-area.fm-content-bottom Course Page: Content: Start – .ldx-widget-area.course-content-start Course Page: Content: End – .ldx-widget-area.course-content-end Group Page: Content: Start – .ldx-widget-area.group-content-start Group Page: Content: End – .ldx-widget-area.group-content-end Example Usage: .ldx-widget-area.fm-nav-before { margin: 1em; } This would add 1em of spacing around the widget area that appears above the navigation in the Focus Mode sidebar. In addition, all widgets placed inside of a widget area have a class of .ldx-widget. Show/Hide Widgets on Certain Devices While not a direct feature of this plugin, you can show/hide widgets on different devices using another free plugin. Install & activate the Widget Options plugin Navigate to the widget that you’d like to adjust the visibility on Scroll to the bottom and click on the tab with the mobile phone Choose to either show or hide on the checked devices Check the appropriate devices Click “Save” Show/Hide Widgets on Specific Course/Lesson/Topic Pages Another feature of the free Widget Options plugin (mentioned above) is to only show widgets on specific course, lesson, topic or quiz pages. Install & activate the Widget Options plugin Navigate to the widget that you’d like to adjust the visibility on Scroll to the bottom and click on the settings cog icon Click on the Logic tab In the text box, you can use the is_single() conditional tag to only display that widget on a specific page Use the ID of the course, lesson, topic or quiz 👉 How to find the ID of LearnDash content Example: This would only display the widget on the page with an ID of 7: is_single( '7' ) If you wanted to display a widget on multiple pages (with IDs of 1, 2 and 3), your code would look like this: is_single( array( 1, 2, 3 ) ) There are many more WordPress conditional tags you can use. From within WordPress Visit “Plugins > Add New” Search for “Widget Areas for LearnDash” Click the “Install” button Click the “Activate” button Navigate to “Appearance > Widgets” or open the Customizer to start adding blocks/widgets to your new widget areas