SharingWidgetsConcept
Opening details inside a widget
What happens when a reader clicks a bill, official or meeting in a widget — details in place by default, or plain text when off.
When a reader clicks a bill, a legislator, an official or a meeting in a widget, its details can slide over the widget, on your page, instead of sending the reader away to CapitolMath. The setting is Open details inside the widget, under When a reader clicks a link in the widget builder, and it's on for every new widget.
It's on by default because a widget is there to keep readers on your site. A chart's drill-down already keeps them there; this does the same for every record.
On: details open in place#
A click opens that record's details in a panel over the widget. Readers can keep going — a legislator, then the bills they sponsored, then one of those bills — and step back with ‹ Back. The × button or Esc closes the panel.
On a chart, a bar, cell, circle or column opens the list of bills or legislators it counts, and a seat or district opens its legislator. On a scorecard, a legislator opens their score and voting record.
The links stay links. Every panel keeps an Open in CapitolMath link, and View data and View all on CapitolMath always open CapitolMath in a new tab. A reader who opens a link in a new tab on purpose, or whose browser runs no scripts, lands in CapitolMath as before.
Off: records are plain text#
With the setting off, the bills, legislators, officials and meetings in the widget — and the lists behind them, such as a legislator's record or a governor's signings — are plain text. Readers can't click through to them, in the widget or on CapitolMath.
View data and View all on CapitolMath still open CapitolMath.
Turn it off when the widget should be a fixed display — a printed-style list of your priorities, say — rather than a way into the record.
What a details panel shows#
A panel shows the public record only: the free panels, for anyone. The paid panels — political lean, whip count, sponsor effectiveness and votes against party — appear only on the widget's own record, where you chose them under your plan. A record reached by clicking has no such choice behind it, so every widget shows the same panel for it.
Trying it#
Click any bill or legislator in the builder's preview: the panel opens there as it will on your site. A Session status widget has no records to open, so the setting isn't offered for it.