Unique Page Sidebars
Over the years developing WordPress themes, I have had many designs that require a different sidebar for just about every page on the site. While it has been possible to accomplish this using a combination of PHP if/else statements or plugins, I have yet to find a decent solution for managing sidebars on a page-by-page basis. Since many of the sites I now work on require this functionality, I decided it was time to write a rather simple but effective plugin that handles this. Therefore, I’m introducing Unique Page Sidebars.
There are obviously some limitations to this plugin, and I don’t expect me to use it on every site I develop, but I chose the most common use-case I have for needing dynamic sidebars, and developed this plugin to fit that need. That said, here is a list of features:
- Creating an unlimited number of sidebars, each with customizable names, descriptions and before/after title/widget tags (see options of
register_sidebar()on the WordPress codex) - Mapping any of the created sidebars to anywhere from 1 to unlimited number of pages
- Only one line of code needed in your theme
- Can easily default to a default sidebar
However, there are a few drawbacks (some of which I’m looking to working out in subsequent versions):
- Only one sidebar per-page
- No ‘default’ options for new sidebars
Download & install the zip archive
The plugin package installer can be downloaded from the WP2E project tab called “code”.
1 – Select the version to download if this option is available otherwise the “latest” version of the main plugin will be used.
2 – After downloading the zip archive install the plugin package installer in you local environment and activate the script from the plugin list.
3 – Under the section “Plugins” of the admin dashboard you should see a new “Dependencies & Licenses” link. Follow the instructions from this panel to finalize the installation of the missing dependencies.
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- Give a name to your project
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- Download the Installer Package
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- Install & activate the plugin locally
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- Install the suggested dependencies
Tips: Use the WP2E panel to add/suggest new dependencies to the local installation. Press F5 in the list of dependencies if the changes are not displayed right away.