Now you can create as many sidebars as you need for any page you want. That’s right, page specific sidebars. You can easily seperate your site into sections, or make every single page have page specific content on it. This does not override your current sidebar(s). This only adds sidebars, so if there is a sidebar selected for the page, it will display the generated sidebar instead of your typical sidebar.
Features (Current version: 1.0.1):
- Generate unlimited sidebars
- pick a sidebar on a per-page basis
- unique CSS classes for each sidebar for customizable looks
- AJAX admin
To install:
- download the Sidebar Generator Plugin
- unzip and upload into your /wp-content/plugins/ folder.
- activate the plugin
- update your sidebar.php file (or any file that calls a sidebar) and replace dynamic_sidebar() with generated_dynamic_sidebar()
Screenshots:
Menu Bar
Admin Screen
Example:
- This website is an example. Notice that there are different widgets on each page. The sidebars are completely seperate. Any widget can be added to any sidebar. In this example (for ease of navigation) I’ve included the page widget on every sidebar, to differentiate them, I’ve given them different titles. I also put different text widgets, search widgets and calendar widgets on them. There is no limit to the number of sidebars you can create. If you want to customize the look (by colors, background images, or anything else) a class is given to each sidebar which is labeled in the admin.
Tested on Wordpress versions:
- 2.8.0
- 2.8.1
- 2.8.2
- 2.8.3
- 2.8.4
- 2.8.5
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Great plugin, I am trying to work on the looks but i do not know how. The sidebar at my forum section should look the same as the rest of theme’s original sidebar…..please help
I took a quick look at your forum, take a look at the source that is outputted on your forum page. You’ll have a class specific to that sidebar, as well as a generic class common among all generated sidebar widgets. You’ll probably want to duplicate the styling you see on your typical .widgettitle classes and/or the #sidebar h2 styles.
Hi there – nice plugin!
I have installed the plugin and edited my sidebar.php file without any problems. I have created a new sidebar and assigned it to a page within my site and it appears to have replaced my old sidebar with the correct new one. However, this side bar is blank (no content) and when I go to appearance>widgets I do not see a new sidebar for me to add widgets to. (Just my original one is displayed).
The only option available on the appearance>sidebars page is to add a new sidebar and to remove it – so I was wondering how I am meant to add content to the new sidebar I have created?
The only mention of “dynamic_sidebar()” was in sidebar.php, however I also have another file in my theme called sidebar-init.php with the following code inside it:
[code]
'Sidebar','id' => 'sidebar-1','before_widget' => '','after_widget' => '','before_title' => '','after_title' => ' '));
}
add_action( 'init', 'the_widgets_init' );
?>
[/code]
Is this likely to be interfering with your plugin and stopping it from functioning correctly?
Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Cheers, James
If you go to Appearance>Sidebars and created a new sidebar, then you should have that new sidebar in Appearance>Widgets. What version of wordpress are you using? When you replace the code with
dynamic_sidebar()that will replace the original sidebar, with your generated one. Can you post more of the code from your sidebar-init.php file?hi..this is a great plugin but it doesn’t work when use the query_posts on a template page/post.
Can you elaborate on that? I am not sure I understand the problem. Do you have a link you can send?
yes sorry.
i have this code in my page template:
<a href="” rel=”bookmark”>
[etc..]
I need the first row of this code, but if that “sidebar generator” stops to work correct even if in my admin i select the right sidebar.
Hope to be more clear: i’m not good in english
ops…my comment it’s trunked °_°
how can i do to show you my code ?
email me: info [at] getson.info
email sent
…hey man…did you recived my e mail? *_*
I am having difficulties with this plugin. My default sidebar widgets are appearing in the new sidebars created with this plugin. And the new sidebar is appearing as the default. Any ideas?
It sounds like you may not have assigned widgets for this new sidebar. You can also view the source of your sidebar, the sidebar generator plugin will place HTML comments letting you know that it is a dynamic sidebar, and its name.
hope that helps. Kyle
Hello – this looks like just what I need… if only I can figure out how to get it working.
I have installed and activated the plugin. But… I don’t understand how to add content to it. I created a “sidebar” called home_page. I would like to put into it a list of articles (WP pages) which I wrote. But how?? I can find no way to assign a category to a page.
In parent page to this page, you have a list of “Standard Sidebar Pages”, with a list of several links. How did you cause that list to appear only on that page?
I did a text search of my whole WP system. I’m using the Thesis theme. I have a file named “sidebar.php”, but there’s no function named “dynamic_sidebar()” in it.
I don’t understand how to add the content??
Thanks for any help you can give me.
Regards, James
There are step by step instructions in the wordpress plugin directory under FAQ. You can assign a page a sidebar by editing the page. If you scroll down below the editor (usually somewhere under the custom fields) there is a box to assign a sidebar.
hope that helps.
Hi, thanks for your reply.
I know about the box at the bottom of the page editor. I have assigned my newly-created sidebar.
But my question was — and still is — now that I have assigned this sidebar to the page, how do I add content to the sidebar??
Thanks,
James
Generated sidebars, like regular sidebars are made up of widgets. So to add things, or ‘content’ to your sidebar, you’ll need to use widgets. If your looking to add text you can use the text widget, or you can try my other plugin the shortcode generator.
I’m getting a random bullet point in front of all of my widgets any clue as to why?
Some themes have very specific styles, so when a sidebar doesnt match a specific set of IDs and/or classes it may not look like the rest of the theme. In this case, it sounds like your theme has specific styles that work with a specific sidebar’s widgets. You will need to add styles to your stylesheet to remove the bullets on widgets. Something like:
#newsidebar ul li {
list-style-type:none;
}
The styles for your theme may be different, but thats the general idea.
I love the idea of this plugin and I must have it! But I can’t seem to get it to work. I downloaded and installed the plugin, created two plugins (pages – for all pages and posts – for all blog pages). Lastly, I added some widgets to the sidebars, but I’m lost at changing the code out. I can’t find “dynamic_sidebar()” in my theme, so is there something I should be looking for or can I just pop the “generated_dynamic_sidebar()” somewhere in the sidebar1.php file? Any kind of help you can provide is great. Thanks a bunch!
You may have more than one sidebar file, but if your theme uses a sidebar it will have ‘dynamic_sidebar()’ somewhere. Are you using a theme you found at wordpress.org? I am not sure what type of tools you have, but you could do a grep from a command line (if your in a unix environment), or if your using something like Dreamweaver, you can search all your theme files for ‘dynamic_sidebar()’. hope that helps.
Hi there, great plug in, just what Im looking for!
I got the plug in working, but it doenst carry the theme of my site or standard sidebar.
Im not up on changing php files etc…
Is there a ‘dummies’ way for me to change the theme to match the rest of my site?
Thanks!
there is not really a ‘dummy’ way to modify a theme. You should try the forums and Google for free help. There are also paid options available, including my wordpress consulting service.
This plug is exactly what I need. I understand how it works, and it’s really great. I do have one problem though. I’m using a template that has some predefined sidebars. This plugin adds it’s generated sidebars above the predefined ones (in the admin panel) causing the content of the sidebars to shift the amount of generated sidebars. The easiest way to solve this would to force the plugin to add it’s sidebars below the predefined ones (if they exit), so then I can drag widgets to them in the admin panel without worrying that the content might shift across sidebars. What changes do I have to make to the plugin in order for it to work? Thanks
Glad you like the plugin! I am currently working on version 1.1.0 which will support themes with multiple sidebars. I’ll post an update as soon as its finished.
That’s great, but is there any “hack” i could perform manually at the moment? I really need it. Up against a wall situation.