adding blocks to sidebars

  • I’m just getting started with WP and know nothing about templates. I downloaded a few and installed them…each one has an attribute i’d like to use, but not one template has all of them ??

    i’d like to use one design theme, but another theme has different stuff in the sidebar. there’s the usual category, archive, blog links, etc…but i’d like to add others. and i don’t know how to do that, wouldn’t even know which file to edit.

    i want to be able to say what book i’m reading in my sidebar. i’ve seen some blogs that have this, and have a picture of the book .. i wouldn’t even know how to add an image there.

    please help, thanks!

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)

  • The file is usually ‘sidebar.php’. Depending on your theme, it’s in wp-content/themes/{your selected theme subfolder}.

    Adding something like a reading list can be hardcoded HTML, or dynamic using something like CG-Amazon — I have many users who have their Amazon list set up and they ‘tag’ the book(s) in the list that are “Currently Reading”, and then a simple piece of PHP code can show that list (with links to the book(s) on Amazon).

    Let me know if you’d like a more detailed example… I should put together the Now Reading/Now Listening sample sidebar thing as a walkthrough on the Codex (if there’s any doc-folks out there who’d like to help, I’m happy to have someone help!).

    -d

    I am one of those users. My site hasn’t been updated in awhile as I am busy with other things, but it is 1.5 and running almost all of David’s plugins. They are from his 1.2 PowerPack but they seem to work fine with WP 1.5. Hopefully I will have some time soon to start testing his alpha version of PowerPack for 1.5 – but I am working on getting a WP installation on another church site right now (and hacking away at the default Kubrick style right now).

    The best way to get help is to be specific about what you need. I would suggest getting his plugin for Amazon, follow the instructions and if you run into trouble post back with a link to the problem.

    Thread Starter cahira

    (@cahira)

    thanks david
    where do i download your plugins?

    i really like this blog idea, but it seems to be a lot of work. what i first liked about it was that it seemed simple to use and wouldn’t be a lot of work.

    here is my site right now
    https://www.worldofbuffy.com/blog-wp/

    you notice on the sidebar i attempted to add another ‘block’…i don’t know what the correct term for that is, i’m just going by phpnuke terms ??

    see how the archives, search, blog, meta all have their own little round box? i would like to add a few other round boxes and have different stuff in them. maybe a picture of me, a mini-profile, etc. so i’ll have to hard code to get those changes in ?

    also, once the changes to the theme are added, how do i manage the content? WP seems to have an easy way to manage category names/blogs/links (i guess that’s because those are default and built-in to the program) but would I have to edit the pages directly to change the info if needed?

    this is getting more and more complicated for me ?? i’m having seconds thoughts on whether this is for me

    thanks for the help

    As a blog it doesn’t take any work really, but as a blog tweaked to your heart’s content… well, that’s another kettle of fish.

    https://www.chait.net/index.php?p=238

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)
  • The topic ‘adding blocks to sidebars’ is closed to new replies.