The plugin seems to be generating an error when used on a site trying to run PHP 8.2

PHP Fatal error: Uncaught TypeError: Cannot access offset of type string on string in /wp-content/plugins/genesis-simple-sidebars/includes/views/entry-metabox-content.php:19

Selecting a specific sidebar on the category level should affect all posts under that category. I assume that’s the expected behavior. However that doesn’t seem to be the case for the latest genesis theme with Recipe Blogger Theme https://www.studiopress.com/themes/recipe-blogger/

Can you please advise? Thanks!

While getting this website updated, I realized I can’t change the contents of certain sidebars on pages. it seems like an issue with genesis sidebars, as it is the only plugin that causes the sidebar to stay stuck. I can’t delete it straight up from the customizer, as it still stays afterwards, and going through genesis doesn’t fix it either.

WordPress version 6.2.2

I am using SPI Pro theme for Genesis and have used Genesis Simple Sidebars for years to create custom sidebars on posts. Not sure when it depreciated but I am no longer able to adjust the sidebar of the post in the edit screen. The dropdown only gives me the option of “default” sidebar. Interestingly onlder posts sometimes still show what is now an “inactive” sidebar in the WP backend.

This is the message I am getting in the customizer:

“Your theme has 11 other widget areas, but this particular page doesn’t display them. You can navigate to other pages on your site while using the Customizer to view and edit the widgets displayed on those pages.”

When I go to widgets in the widget area of WP many old widgets show as inactive sidebars.

Just a bunch of funny behavior in general. I am sure it is related to my old and no longer updated Genesis WP theme and hoping somebody has a solution to make this work again.

Thanks from a long-time Genesis user.

Website is https://www.thepalife.com

Stephen

• This topic was modified 2 years, 3 months ago by Stephen.

Medium Severity Problems:
* The Plugin “Genesis Simple Sidebars” appears to be abandoned (updated April 9, 2020, tested to WP 5.4.10).
https://www.ads-software.com/plugins/genesis-simple-sidebars/#developers
has the plugin been discontinued?

Is there anything on the short term horizon to convert this plugin (or create another genesis plugin) which will have same conditional functionality for genesis using sidebar gutenberg blocks instead of widgets?

Hi
I know this question has been asked before (about 3 years ago) but wondering if anything has been done to make it possible.

ie is it possible to add a new sidebar globally to existing posts within a category?

My attempt at something sort of works, and could I ask for a fresh set of eyes to see what I’m missing? Thanks. I’m trying to create some conditional sidebars using Genesis Simple Sidebars, and modifying a code snippet from WPBeaches which was posted in 2014.

What I want to do is have a few custom sidebars dedicated to a few specific category archives and their single posts. I created a single test widget in each custom sidebar, wrote up the code to do two different categories with conditionals (using is_category for archive pages and in_category for single posts), and a fallback of the primary sidebar for all other categories. The result is that the sidebars work on those two categories (and one of them is a parent category), but on single posts in those two categories the result is the primary sidebar. I notice that the child category archives of the parent category do not show the custom sidebar (and I’d like them to). So it sort of works, but not as I expected. I have a conditional of is_single, is_category, and is_tag to start the process. Here is the code.

// Custom sidebars with conditionals for post categories 

add_action( 'genesis_before_sidebar_widget_area', 'themeprefix_remove_sidebar' ); // starts the ball rolling

function themeprefix_remove_sidebar() {
if ( is_single() || is_category() || is_tag() ) {  // set your connditionals here
remove_action( 'genesis_sidebar', 'ss_do_sidebar' );     // removes Simple Sidebar
remove_action( 'genesis_sidebar', 'genesis_do_sidebar' );   // removes Genesis Default sidebar 
add_action( 'genesis_sidebar', 'sb_add_sidebar' ); // adds alternative sidebar in function below
 }   
}
// Alternative Sidebar
function sb_add_sidebar() {
    if( is_category('christian-faith') || in_category('christian-faith') ) {
                 dynamic_sidebar( 'faith-sidebar' );
                 }
    elseif( is_category('learning-and-homeschooling') || in_category('learning-and-homeschooling') ) {
                 dynamic_sidebar( 'homeschooling-sidebar' );
                 }
    else { 
                 dynamic_sidebar( 'sidebar' );
                 }            
}

Is there a way to add conditions to the simple sidebar widgets?

The site structure is like so:
I have a category page for “Paris” which displays all Paris related blog posts, under Paris I have categories like “Travel guides, food, attractions” and the blog posts fall under the appropriate categories.

What I’m trying to do is create a sidebar with a condition to only show on all blog posts under the Paris category. So Paris’s unique tag id is “tag_ID=36”. Is something like this possible?

I am trying to figure out how I can change the sidebar from the Primary Sidebar that is used on the Home page to a different one for all single posts.

Thank you for the help

Hi There. I have installed this plugin on a new installation for a WooCommerce client demo using a Genesis Child Theme. I have created 2 new sidebars, one for the shop pages and one for the information pages. The sidebar selection options are showing for all pages like about, contact, etc., and I can set those to the sidebar I want.

So here are the 3 issues I am having:

1: The sidebar selection is NOT showing for any shop pages created by WooCommerce (the typical ones automatically created by Woo) and is also not showing if you tick the drop-down for Screen Options to tick the Sidebar Selection box.

2: The sidebar selection is NOT showing for any products created and is also not showing if you tick the drop-down for Screen Options to tick the Sidebar Selection box.

3: For all product categories, I have selected the correct sidebar, but when I click on any of the shop categories, the shop sidebar that I created does not show, only the primary sidebar shows.

I currently have this plugin on several other installations and have had no problems until now with this new install.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Pamela

This link to a year old topic wasn’t detailed. https://www.ads-software.com/support/topic/add-genesis-simple-sidebars-to-genesis-cpt-archive-settings/

SO where does the code go? It would be real nice to be able to have the Simple Sidebars selectable in any custom post type admin pages….

Dear All,

could you please help me to solve this problem: I am adding a sidebar to a post in backend, but it is not shown in frontend on the page? Does someone know what is wrong?thanks a lot!

So odd…
This website uses Genesis Simple Sidebars. Nine simple sidebars were created years ago. Each of the sidebars contains contains one widget which is the attorney’s personal cv.

Today I migrated the website from one web host to another and suddenly every one of the widgets inside the 9 different sidebars has disappeared. They’re not in Inactive widgets; they’re just gone.

Is the widget content kept in a database table? Any thoughts on how to recover it?
Many thanks –

This was a mistake. Sorry for the mess.

• This topic was modified 4 years, 11 months ago by biberkopf. Reason: Error

We discovered something the hard way today: if you paste in special characters into an Arbitrary HTML widget that’s part of a sidebar provided by Genesis Simple Sidebars, it results in the content in nearly all the Simple Sidebar widgets disappearing. Crazy!

An example of a UTF-8 character that we can’t handle is →.

Luckily we had a database backup from last night that we were able to restore. But thought you would want to know about this. Thanks!

I am running wordpress 5.2.1, and genesis 2.10.1. I use simple sidebars and simple menus extensively…. I just noticed today that when I try to change an assigned sidebar or an assigned menu for a page, the changes seem to take effect on the backend (meaning the settings save for the menus and sidebar assigned), but the frontend does not reflect the change. It keeps the old menu and sidebar settings. I disabled all plugins running except simple menus and simple sidebars…same issue. I and also cleared caching, I see content changes I made taking effect so I know cache is clearing, but the sidebar and menu assignment changes are not taking effect.

Running latest WP / PHP / Genesis. Using Corporate Pro child theme.

I set up a couple new sidebar menus. I tried on both pages and posts, successfully selecting and alternate sidebar. Updated. Went to Customize the page to add widgets, I can only see the Primary Sidebar.

Likewise, getting to Menus outside of Customize, the new sidebars are not listed.

Any suggested? I’ve tried turning off other plugins.

Thanks.

Hoping for an update for this plugin. This is an essential for many people using Genesis. Please let us know the future status – abandoned or update coming. Hoping WP Engine (new Genesis owner) will see its value and choose update!

This has always been a very useful plugin, unfortunately the current status is:
Last updated: 2 years ago
Tested up to: 4.7.12

Could you tell us if this plugin will be updated or has it reached End Of Life?

In that case, are there any alternatives you can suggest?

What tables would be modified with the Genesis Simple Sidebar plugin? My objective is that since I’ve used the plugin and added widget content to the custom sidebars(Created with the plugin). I would like to “grab” the changes/modifications made by the plugin in the database so that I can push these as “sql changes” to a git repo.

It would seem that Simple Sidebars is causing an error on my site. I’m running WordPress 5.0.3 as well as WPML – and with the Sidebars plugin activated, I get a ‘Failed to Update’ error whenever editing then updating a page or post in WordPress. Strangely enough, the edits still seem to work and are live on the public-facing page, but the error is a bit disconcerting and having to confirm in the additional pop up dialogue from WordPress whether I want to ‘leave or cancel’ is slowing work on the site down considerably.

I’ve tried disabling other plugins and this seems to be the culprit.

I checked with my hosting provider if it was a database issue and he provided this code from the error log – which really means nothing to me:

[28-Jan-2019 12:42:57 UTC] Array
(
   [no_found_rows] => 1
   [orderby] => Array
       (
           [orderby_meta] => DESC
       )

   [meta_query] => Array
       (
           [orderby_meta] => Array
               (
                   [key] => _download_count
                   [type] => NUMERIC
               )

           [0] => Array
               (
                   [key] => _download_count
                   [value] => 0
                   [compare] => >
                   [type] => NUMERIC
               )

       )

   [ignore_custom_sort] => 1
   [post_type] => dlm_download
   [posts_per_page] => 10
)

• This topic was modified 5 years, 10 months ago by KentFackenthall.

Hello, I attempted to update my site to the newest version of WordPress (5.0.3) twice today and each time my sidebars were thrown off. Right aligned sidebars were on the left of the page and ruined the formatting and layout of all pages across the site.

This plugin says it hasn’t been updated in 2 years(!!) and is only compatible up to version 4.7.12. We are currently using a couple other Genesis plugins that are also outdated, which is clearly a cause for concern.

Is there a planned update for this (and other Genesis plugins)?

I know that this plugin is made for sidebars and that the FAQ says it is not to be used for additional widget areas but…

Given the popularity of the after entry area widget these day and the increasing use of mobile (which is not sidebar friendly) could you create an After Entry version of this plugin?

Curious if there will be an update to allow this plugin to work with sites that have Gutenberg installed. In testing, we appear to lose the sidebar option when Gutenberg is activated.

Hi,

I am getting this error in the error log.

PHP Notice: register_sidebar was called incorrectly. No id was set in the arguments array for the “404” sidebar. Defaulting to “0”. Manually set the id to “0” to silence this notice and keep existing sidebar content.

I have tried deleting the 404 sidebar but I can’t to that. How can I manually change the id to something else?

Thanks for your help!
Steve

I have used Genesis Simple Sidebars for a long time on my Derrick child theme. Never had any problem. Yesterday I switched to another child theme for troubleshooting, and when I reverted to Derrick, all my Genesis Simple Sidebars still display the original content, but they also display this text “This is the Primary Sidebar Widget Area. You can add content to this area by visiting your Widgets Panel and adding new widgets to this area.” My theme comes with three standard sidebars but none of them has any content. How can I get rid of that annoying text. There is no widget in the sidebar that contains this text. Thank you!

Hi,

I’m wondering if there is a way to made sidebar only for posts page. In edit mode, this sidebar is set to other, but at the minute I’m changing this page into posts page sidebar goes back to primary, not custom.

I noticed this plugin was last updated 9 months ago and the supported version numbering wasn’t bumped in quite some time either, hence my question: Is this plugin still supported?

I’ve implemented this plugin on various client sites in the past and it is easy to explain to clients. So in that respect it really comes in handy. It also works fine on the current WP version. However, going forward, with a eye to implementing it on new projects it would be good to know if Studiopress still supports it and will continue to do so in the future.

Next to that a bump in the supported version numbering would be a good idea too in my opinion.

Hope to hear from you soon.

Many thanks in advance!

• This topic was modified 6 years, 10 months ago by Draxeiro.

I’m using the genesis simple sidebars plugin on a site I’m developing and was wondering if anyone has a solution to adding the sidebar selection box to the genesis cpt archive settings page?

I’ve added the support for individual post types i.e.:
add_post_type_support( 'myposttype', 'genesis-simple-sidebars' );
but I can’t seem to figure out how to add support for a cpt archive?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.