Posts in Sidebar 1.4

The short introduction looks very nice in your website.
Thanks, Mike, for the great idea!

Hi Aldo. I am very glad you have introduced a flexible way to enhance the sidebars in WordPress. I have tried using many others (before I found Posts in Sidebar)they all had one or two good features, but then were poor in others. Yours is the best quite easily. I was really pleased to be able to write the introductions in bold and italics – this was a great idea on top of my suggestion.
A few other thoughts (your fault for taking up my last suggestion!). 1. The big problem with any website is managing content; my website is beginning to receive lots of articles from local history researchers. Although the go to -> facility is very good, sometimes people just like to see a quick list. I suspect this is difficult, but it would be nice to hover over that ‘go to ->’ facility and for a drop down menu to appear. I’m not sure how it would look in practice though.
2. Another thought would be to have the title with a link option.
3. I have never really found scrolling menus to ‘look good’. Have a look at my son’s website and look at the ‘Flexipages’ scrolling menu: https://www.willchurcher.com It looks ‘clunky’ and not a part of its surroundings. It would be very nice for Posts in Sidebar to have a scroll down menu option, but one that is in keeping with the rest of ‘your look / your style’.
4. My website has a mix of pages and posts, but what is strange is that I cannot pull them together under one category. What would be nice is to have the categories set up as you have already, plus the opportunity to add pages. Admittedly changing the brand to ‘Posts and Pages in Sidebar’ doesn’t sound very snappy though !

Just a few thoughts.

Mike

Hi Mike,
here are my answers:

1) It’s possible to add a dropdown to the end of the list that shows other titles, but this would require to add a second loop, that will make your pages heavier to be created. Every loop requires resources: a loop for the page’s content, a loop for every widget generated by “Posts in Sidebar” and, adding this feature, will require an additional loop for every widget. Unless I’ll find a smart method to avoid a second loop, I do not recommend this. I’ll let you know.

2) Do you mean the title of the widget?

3) This is not possible, because the appearance of a website is different from another website. The only choice is a HTML dropdown, like those on your son’s website, that can be stylized via CSS.

4) “Posts in Sidebar” has been designed to retrieve posts, not pages. This would require adding a “stranger” (for this plugin) feature… For the same reason explained at point nr. 1, this feature will require an additional loop for every widget. But… why do not use the WordPress “Menu widget” that you already have among other widgets? With this widget you can show all types of links, including categories, posts, pages, or external links. The downside is that you have to manually choose what to display. Anyway I’ll take a look if it’s possible without affecting your site’s performance.

Hi Aldo, yes these suggestions are only cosmetic and not worth any increases in loading speeds.

Regarding point 2) yes I was asking about the title being a link, but I have placed a link inside the new box you created for introductions and it worked https://www.wokinghamremembers.com

I am delighted with the results, many thanks again !

Mike

Hi Mike,
the version 1.5 is available and now you can linkify your widget title.

??

Hi Aldo. I’ve now updated the sidebar with the link in the title. Excellent !! I spent a few hours converting the pages into posts to enable me use your plugin for most of the categories. I’ve got the best sidebar in the world now…. no doubt about it.;-)

I’ve got the best sidebar in the world now…. no doubt about it.;-)

I agree! ??