twentyeleven and sidebar

  • one of the reason I like wordpress is its intuitivity and friendliness. a lot of things works out of the box without the need to directly edit the code.

    that said, I don’t know how to put it in a non polemic way, but I find quite annoying that by default the sidebar do *not* appear in home page, pages and singles, whatever indication one may give through the theme option, and that this fact is not officially documented.

    in the theme’s options panel I clearly see the possibility of having:
    – content to the left and sidebar to the right, or
    – content to the right and sidebar to the left, or
    – only content and no sidebar at all.

    so it seems that I am already offered the possibility to choose where and whether the sidebar is to be shown, without the need for someone else to choose it by “default” without even telling me about it and worse, giving me non-coherent indications.

    also, I see in all template files the get_sidebar row.

    it is only by specifically searching for misfunctions in the forums that I learn that I should change the template for pages in order to have the sidebar to show.

    what if I have to apply the theme to a site already populated with many pages, where some of them may also already have another template?

    in short I am not positively impressed by the fact that this may be considered a desiderd default behavior, and I’m also not positively impressed by the fact that the only solutions I was able to find were unofficial workarounds (no offence to the good will people who offered them) that involved non-banal tinkering with the code: what’s the reason then to standardize development with subthemes and all, then.

    I really hope this behavior will be changed in future releases.

    if I see an option saying display sidebar on the left or on the right, then put the sidebar where you prefer, but do display it!

    if I do not want the sidebar to be displayed, then *I* will arrange that by choosing the appropriate theme option or by removing get_sidebar from the template, without the need to wonder why the sidebar is not appearing at all.

    thanks.

Viewing 7 replies - 1 through 7 (of 7 total)
  • Moderator Ipstenu (Mika Epstein)

    (@ipstenu)

    ?????? Advisor and Activist

    It’s a theme. If you don’t like it, you can change to a new one.

    Thread Starter lucaboccianti

    (@lucaboccianti)

    you mean, really? can I? who could have said it.

    well, I’ll desing a new theme where I’ll leave the option of showing or not showing the sidebar, but the sidebar will be always shown no matter what you choose.

    then when people ask “hey, why the sidebar is still there when I ask it to disappear”, I’ll say “hey, it’s a theme, choose or design yourself a new one if you don’t like it”.

    problem is, the theme I’m talking about is the standard wp theme that’s also suggested as a standard parent theme for child theme development.

    it seems you have a somewhat official position in this forum, maybe you can elaborate on the rationale of choosing the sidebar not to be displayed by default.

    that’s also suggested as a standard parent theme for child theme development

    No. Any recent theme that’s been coded to WPORG standard can act as a parent for a child theme.

    Thread Starter lucaboccianti

    (@lucaboccianti)

    your reply start with “no”. “no” to what?

    let me be picky as you and the other short-answer guy tried to be. I said Twentyeleven is suggested as *a* standard parent theme. now, I’m not english mothertongue, but if I’m not wrong *a* should mean “one of the many possible standard themes”.

    so first you say no to what I said, then you said it.

    I read from the Twentyeleven page: “The 2011 theme for WordPress etc.”. again, I’m not english mothertongue but I interpret that sentence like a sort of official wp org endorsement as Twentyeleven as *the* standard starting point for theme development among the many possible ones.

    I may not have given the impression of knowing that, but before you explain it to me, let me assure you I know I can use almost any properly coded theme as parent, and I also know about the existence of framework themes intended for child development, and that I used them. I just wanted to use “*The* 2011 theme for wordpress”.

    anyway, now that you demonstrated you’re good with short answers, I would like to ask you, too, if you want to elaborate about the choice of not displaying the sidebar, and your opinion about the coherence of the admin interface when it ask where to display the sidebar and then in many occasions the sidebar isn’t displayed it at all.

    maybe I’m really missing something important here and your help in understanding this choice could be useful.

    thanks.

    let me be picky as you and the other short-answer guy tried to be.

    There’s really no need for that. And, incidentally, we’re both female. ??

    Twenty Eleven is the current default WP theme. Full stop. It’s not intended to be the “standard” for anything theme design wise. And just to clear up any language issues, “standard” in this context would mean the established norm or benchmark. If you are looking for a set of theme standards, then see this Codex entry.

    The choice of not displaying the sidebar in Twenty Eleven was a design choice. It’s really just as simple as that. And perfectly valid – especially that this can be overridden using a child theme and/or a plugin.

    to elaborate about the choice of not displaying the sidebar

    I honestly think at the time, it was a content decision.

    The ‘distraction free editor’ was brand new, WP was focusing on being a conttent driven, content focused CMS

    So, this new ‘default’ theme shipped, it had a lot of whitespace, minimal other distractions, and no sidebars (By default) on single post, and page pages

    It’s not so hard to modify through a child, there are many resources around the Google machine. For instance on my site, I had to reduce the whitespace a bit, shrink the header a bit, make the theme a bit wider, etc to suit my personal taste.

    Ultimately a theme is all about personal taset really… even whatever the current default WP theme happens to be — just in that case, maybe a few more people get involved….

    Moderator Ipstenu (Mika Epstein)

    (@ipstenu)

    ?????? Advisor and Activist

    in short I am not positively impressed by the fact that this may be considered a desiderd default behavior, and I’m also not positively impressed by the fact that the only solutions I was able to find were unofficial workarounds (no offence to the good will people who offered them) that involved non-banal tinkering with the code: what’s the reason then to standardize development with subthemes and all, then.

    That part of your post read as ‘I don’t like this theme!’ And while that’s totally valid, it’s really simple. If you don’t like a theme, don’t use it. WordPress’ default theme was designed that way on purpose and a lot of people don’t like it. But themes are very much a personal preference sort of thing. So tl;dr, if you don’t like a theme (or a plugin for that matter), just don’t use it ?? Folks hated the old ‘default’ and TwentyTen, and I’m sure people will hate TwentyTwelve. Themes are like that.

    Child themes are not “unofficial workarounds.” They are, in fact, the exact correct thing to do if you like most of a theme, but not all, and want to make a tweak ?? We encourage it.

    I really hope this behavior will be changed in future releases.

    It won’t be. With this theme. This is how it’s supposed to look. If you don’t like it, make a child theme or pick another. ??

    (2012 I THINK has sidebars everywhere, but it’s been a while since I looked.)

Viewing 7 replies - 1 through 7 (of 7 total)
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