Unable to edit “sidebar.php” in theme, everything gets erased

  • Hi,

    I downloaded a WordPress theme from ThemePorter.com and am having some issues working with the WordPress template editor to get my sidebar working the way I want. In this particular design’s sidebar settings, it shows the months archive section, blogroll, and search. However, I want to add a few small pictures, text, and links if possible. For example, a link to my Twitter page, MySpace, whatever. However, whenever I edit the “sidebar.php” page in the page editor, once I make changed and save the content, the sidebar completely disappears from my blog design once I view the site. I’m not sure what I’m doing wrong, but I’m pretty sure the sidebar is editable since I’ve seen other WordPress blogs that have custom values for that section.

    Any advice on what to do from there? Thanks.

Viewing 13 replies - 1 through 13 (of 13 total)

  • Are you sure that it isn’t bumping it down to the bottom of the page? If you are inserting images larger than the sidebar area, a lot of times it bumps it down below the rest of the content.

    Thread Starter zeroping

    (@zeroping)

    Nope, I’m sure. When I make any changes at all, even like one character, it will even knock my blog posts completely off my blog and just show my header. Really strange.

    Rather than edit sidebar.php, why not go to your admin’s Presentation » Widgets and modify the sidebar using the widgets interface?

    (Requires that the theme be widgetized, as decent ones are, and that your version of WP be recent, of course.)

    If widgets don’t do the trick, can you post the url and upload the sidebar.php and style.css to

    https://wordpress.pastebin.ca

    Thread Starter zeroping

    (@zeroping)

    I’m not sure how to go about getting it to work in Widget form, as I’ve never used it before. I’ll play around with it and see what happens.

    https://wordpress.pastebin.ca/736584 – style.css
    https://wordpress.pastebin.ca/736587 – sidebar.php

    I’m wanting the sidebar to look something like https://www.tastyblogsnack.com

    The theme is widgetized. If you’re using WP 2.3, you can use the widgets interface. (If pre WP 2.3, you’ll need to download the “sidebar widgets” plugin to make the widgets thing work.)

    You can edit the sidebar directly if you want, but believe, widgets are very easy to use. And there are MANY widgets (besides the default ones) available in the plugins database.

    Thread Starter zeroping

    (@zeroping)

    Thanks for taking a look, Adam. As far as importing 3rd party widgets into my WordPress blog, how do I go about that? On my friends blog that I posted the link to, she has Twitter icons, Technorati, Revver, Flickr, etc. I want to be able to have ones like those as well. Do these websites offer importable widgets, or do you have to make them yourself?

    Search the plugins database for “widget.” There’s tons of them. Add them to your blog like you do any other plugin. Then go to the widgets interface and position them where you want them in your sidebar.

    Thread Starter zeroping

    (@zeroping)

    Nice. But how about adding text and what not? I wanted to add a small “About me” section like my friend, possibly. However, I still have that issue when editing it without doing widgets. Unless I made a custom widget with the text in it I want I guess?

    Thread Starter zeroping

    (@zeroping)

    Bump.

    Anyone have more information to put me in the right direction?

    There’s also a Text Widget

    Just try it out, you’ll figure out it. Widget’s really aren’t difficult, and they’re flexible enough to do just about whatever you want. Really.

    And there’s a built-in text widget, you don’t even need the plugin linked to in the previous post.

    To continue this topic: I would like to put a email subscription form in my sidebar . . . do I need to make a widget or can I just add the html?

    Also, which sidebar should I edit . . . there are several in the wordpress directory (the theme one?).

    Also, I assume that if I chnage the theme later on I will need to redo the sidebar again – can anyone confirm that for me?
    Thanks.

Viewing 13 replies - 1 through 13 (of 13 total)
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