Banhawi

Wordpress can be used to create any type of site that’s because of it’s powerful functions  which give developers the freedom to play and create , this tutorial is about a simple yet great for CMS sites tip which is creating different sidebars .

Problem #1

When developing sites using wordpress you may need to create different sidebars maybe just different in content or in style too .

Solution :

We will create two sidebars one for home page , one for pages and one for blog (categories , posts , archives … etc) .

<?php if ( is_front_page() ) {?>
	<div id="home_sidebar">
	...sidebar content.....
	</div>
<?php } /* end home_sidebar */  ?>

<?php if ( is_page() && !is_front_page() ) {?>
	<div id="pages_sidebar">
	...sidebar content.....
	</div>
<?php } /* end pages_sidebar */ ?>

<?php else {?>
	<div id="blog_sidebar">
	...sidebar content.....
	</div>
<?php } /* end blog_sidebar */ ?>

the code above explains itself , we simply created our three sidebars #home_sidebar , #pages_sidebar , #blog_sidebar which will contain different content , we used Wordpress Conditional Tags ( is_front_page() , is_page() ) .

Line 1 : used is_front_page() tag within an if statement in order to display #home_sidebar content only in the front page
Note : there’s a big difference between is_front_page() and is_home()

Line 7 : used is_page() && !is_front_page() within an if statement in order to display the #pages_sidebar within all pages and used && !is_front_page() in order not to show this sidebar within the home page if you using static page as your home page

Line 13 : If not home page or page the #blog_sidebar will be displayed

Problem #2

If you used a premium portfolio or business theme or looking forward developing your own , you’ll notice that those themes looks like they using two wordpress installations , as you’ll find in most of these themes Blog and Portfolio , both with different styling , sidebars and sometimes layout

Solution :

With the power of conditional tags it’s not a problem , we just will create two different parent categories

Blog
> news
> tips
> sub category
Portfolio
> web
> print

<?php if ( is_category('Blog') && in_category('Blog')  ) {?>
	<div id="blog_sidebar">
	...sidebar content.....
	</div>
<?php } /* end blog_sidebar */ ?>

<?php if ( is_category('Portfolio') && in_category('Portfolio')  ) {?>
	<div id="portfolio_sidebar">
	...sidebar content.....
	</div>
<?php } /* end portfolio_sidebar */ ?>

Line 1 : used is_category(’Blog’) && in_category(’Blog’) within if statement to display #blog_sidebar only within category Blog , it’s sub-categories and post pages within the Blog category and it’s sub-categories .

Line 1 : used is_category(’Portfolio’) && in_category(’Portfolio’) within if statement to display #portfolio_sidebar only within category Portfolio , it’s sub-categories and post pages within the Portfolio category and it’s sub-categories .

… solved