News Print Theme – How to add left side bar?

Owen Briggs can provide a head start on three column layouts.

I am not familiar with the NewPrint theme, but you’ll have to decide if you want the columns to be fluid (ie resize with window) or fixed (an absolute positioning) or a combination of the two (fixed sidebars with a fluid center).

Should have included the links to the there https://www.theenglishguy.co.uk/news-print-theme/
and this is it in action https://www.balancednewsblog.com/

JL – to answer your question, I’d like the 2nd sidebar fixed. (which to me means the content will be the same whether on the main page, sub-pages, etc)

fixed means that the columns do not resize with the size of the browser window. How the content appears from the index page to a single page depends upon the coding in each page.

The balanced news blog site is a fixed three column layout.
To get the three columns to be the same size, (ie., like the balanced news blog), you would change the “width” in each of the three divs.

If you placed this in the stylesheet:

#contentleft {
width:250px;
float:left;
}

#contentcenter {
width:250px;
float:left;
}

#contentright {
width:250px;
float:left;
}

your left sidebar would be

<div id="contentleft>

your center content (in the index page)

<div id="contentcenter>

and your right sidebar would be

<div id="contentright>

and in the index page, I think it would have to read

<?php get_left_sidebar() ?>

index stuff

<?php get_right_sidebar() ?>

Just to be clear, i want to use the (3) columns that are part of the News Print theme and keep them under the posts as it is out of the box. what i’d like to add is a left sidebar. The line that I’d add to my index file seems simple, still a little unclear as to what I’d add to the CSS file.

i understand what you are looking for. I am telling you that your css stylesheet must define three “classes” or “ids” for the columns. Each class/id must set the width of the column and tell it to float from the left.

The News blog theme has two div “ids”.

#middle {
width: 800px;
margin: 0 auto;
}

#sidebar {
width: 200px;
text-align: left;
float: right;
}

In order for you to have three columns, you have to define 1 more “id”. I.e., #sidebarleft. This column must float on the left side instead of on the right. I think (do not know for sure) that they should all float from the left and then appear in the following order in the index page: div id = “sidebar left”, div id=”middle”, div id=”sidebar”

We are either looking at different themes… or I just don’t get it.
The theme you are talking about is 2 column theme – where the content area is divided in 3 “newspaper like” divs/cloumns. But the general layout is of a 2 col theme. There is nowhere 3 columns – that would be the “left sidebar” that the OP wants to add to it. Which is never as easy as new users might think!

Oh, I think I did not get it, Moshu. I didn’t realize that the poster wanted a two column theme with the main column having three “divs”. That’s too confusing for me. LOL. You might just save the stylsheet from the balancednewsblog site.

I think I became fixated on the three column theme because the poster initially stated s/he wanted to add a “left” sidebar. My bad. Maybe you should delete my posts. Probably me trying to be helpful is like the less blind, leading the more blind. Never a good scenario.

It is not a column that I’d like to add, but a 2nd side bar. The theme already has one on the right (which goes down the entire length of the front page), and I’d like to add one to the left hand side.
JL – yes you did help a little ??
Moshu – I didn’t think it would be an easy task

It may be easier, SG, to find a three column theme (one that has a left sidebar/right sidebar/ and center column) and then just modify the colors and header to be consistent with the newsblog.

Wish this was live for you to view, but it isn’t yet. JaneLittle suggested pretty much what I’m doing for an upcoming site. I took a 3 column theme (https://kenklaser.gaiastream.com/2005/02/10/new-template-for-wordpress-122/), which I also use for my talkjunkie.com site, and scooped out the loop. I then dropped in the NewsPrint loop code for the 3 columns of posts and changed the widths to percentages.

This creates a fluid 5 column. You have the three post columns inside left and right sidebars, with a full width header and footer. Easy enough even for me.