Sidebar not being replaced under any conditions.

I am not entirely sure how Pods work, but is Sample Page a custom post type, or is it a page using a specific template to display information from a Pod?

What is the exact content of the condition group you created?

Thank you for your prompt reply, Joachim, I really appreciate it.

I initially created a custom post type (character) using the Pods plugin. Then I associated it with a page template (https://rogerramjet.com/character/roger-ramjet).

Screenshot: https://rogerramjet.com/_ss/pod_page_(linked_to_page_template).png

This is the code of the page template:

Screenshot: https://rogerramjet.com/_ss/page_template_php_code.png

Because this didn’t work, I thought there might be an issue specific to the Pods plugin so I changed the Group criteria to include everything (Static Pages, Pages, Posts … etc).

Screenshot: https://rogerramjet.com/_ss/sidebars.png

Screenshot: https://rogerramjet.com/_ss/widgets.png

When I visit the either the Pod page or the sample HTML page the default sidebar is still there and hasn’t been replaced.

https://rogerramjet.com/character/roger-ramjet (Screenshot: https://rogerramjet.com/_ss/pod_page_html.png)

https://rogerramjet.com/sample-page/ (Screenshot: https://rogerramjet.com/_ss/sample_page_html.png)

So it doesn’t look as though the custom sidebar is replacing any instance at all (Pod page, regular page, post, …) and I’m not sure why.

I’m using a MultiSite setup so I created a fresh site, activated the Content Aware Plugin, added a new Group which applied to everything (pages, posts, etc.) but the sidebar is not being replaced under any circumstances.

My WordPress version is 4.3.1.

Firstly, I am glad about the details as it makes it a lot easier for me to find the problem, but I am baffled and disappointed in the review you left seing as this thread has not been abandoned.
My last reply was 4 days ago. This is a free plugin and while I provide support for it in my spare time, nowhere it is stated that I have to. Reviews do not make me provide support faster, especially not negative ones. In fact, they demotivate me to further develop and support the plugin. So while you are in your right to write any review on www.ads-software.com, I want you to consider this in the future.

Now, in this screenshot, https://rogerramjet.com/_ss/sidebars.png, your settings imply that you want your sidebar to be displayed if the content is: any static page AND 2 specific posts AND 2 specific pages AND any media AND …

This is the reason why your sidebar does not show up; those conditions are impossible to meet.

If you want your sidebar to show up only on your character pages, choose this for your condition group:
Page Templates: Character detail page

If you want the sidebar also to be displayed under other conditions, you need to create a new condition group for those, e.g. one for specific pages, one for specific posts, one for media etc…

Let me know if this works for you.

I really appreciate your reply, Joachim. My intention behind posting the plugin review was to provide honest feedback about my experience in attempting to implement the Content Aware Sidebars plugin and it appears that in this case, my assessment was posted too hastily, given your response. For this I apologize.

It was a big oversight on my part to not have noticed the grey ANDs between each set of criteria and my (false) assumption was that the criteria was OR based.

I was able to get the sidebar replaced for pages and posts by not for page templates (Page Templates: Character detail page). I’m not sure why, given the <?php get_sidebar(); ?> call.

I really do appreciate your help and I’m certainly willing to pay for it if you will allow.

I have tried to reproduce your use case, and the problem is that when using the “Page” component in pods, you are moving “outside” the WordPress conditions/logic.
This means that:
1) WordPress (and thus Content Aware Sidebars) does not know what “conditionals” to use (e.g. is_page, is_singular etc)
2 Even though you have selected a Page Template to be used, WordPress also does not know how to get the correct ID of the pod/page.

There have previously been a couple of threads about built-in support for this. I am sure it could be possible and I would be happy to include such feature.

https://www.ads-software.com/support/topic/pods-integration-2
https://www.ads-software.com/support/topic/extension-for-pod-pages-and-templates
https://www.ads-software.com/support/topic/sidebar-with-costum-template-filter-not-showing

For it to work, the before mentioned issues should be resolved, i.e. I would need a way to get the id of the current Pod.

If that is not possible, can I ask you why you are using the Pages component in Pods and not just creating a Pod that “mimics” a custom post type? I would like to know your use case, as the latter is supported by Content Aware Sidebars.

Thank you for taking the time to reproduce and look into this, Joachim, I really do appreciate it.

The reason I’m using a Pods Page is because as far as I could tell, it was the simplest way to display “pod” custom post type information.

I do see an option in the Pods plugin referring to “Templates”. Is this what you mean by “creating a Pod that “mimics” a custom post type”?

Is this what you mean when you refer to “creating a Pod that “mimics” a custom post type”?

https://developer.www.ads-software.com/themes/template-files-section/custom-post-type-template-files/

So what I did when trying to reproduce your issue was that I went to Pods > Add New.
Then I chose “Create New” and filled out the settings.

A new menu item (characters) then showed up in the administration under Comments, from where I can add new characters, just like I do it with posts/pages.

The characters I create are also available when editing a sidebar, meaning that I can target specific character “pages”.

URL for each character is: yoursite.com/character/<name>
URL for characters archive: yoursite.com/characters

So seing as this is all possible, I wanted to know why you use the “Pages” component in Pods.

To answer your last question, yes, it should be possible to create these files:

single-character.php
archive-character.php

and use them as templates for your characters.

Thank you, Joachim, this worked. I really appreciate your help.

That is great to hear that you got it working. Would you consider updating your review of the plugin?

Also, you might want to follow this thread: https://www.ads-software.com/support/topic/pods-integration-3

Done. Thank you again for your help, Joachim.