Widget Conditions – Won’t Display Widgets On Posts ‘Page’

I have corrected this. For some reason, if I create a blank page and set it as a Static Posts page, widgets will not appear. It is as though it thinks that the page does not exist, and is setting its own rules. Though it does respect the new Posts url.

However, I put a fullstop ( . ) on the Posts page, leaving the rest of the page blank, and the widgets magically appear. Having said that, any entered content does not appear above or below the main posts – which in this case, is useful, but not so useful if I wished to put content on the actual page to display above or below the default ‘Posts’ coding that WordPress has.

• This reply was modified 1 week, 2 days ago by es90.

Category Widget Goal

My aim was to manually link to individual categories from a page that I would create. Each category would be accessible only to specific people.

On each individual category, I would have Featured Posts, Popular Posts, Random Posts (that kind of thing) above the main default posts coding that WordPress has. The featured widgets would be relevant to each category:

• Business posts
• Educational posts
• Travel posts

etc

Each Featured Slider (with relevant blog posts) displays correctly on the main category page, with no issues.

I have also listed Random Posts after Post 1, Post 2, Post 3, Post 4 and Post 5 etc. This has worked well, and I have no issues with it.

Single Posts Display Problem

However, when I click on each individual WordPress entry and go to that individual WordPress entry page, multiple Featured Sliders appear at the top.

As I have installed Featured Sliders on each category, so far there are three Featured Sliders – All (not Uncategorised), Business and Literature.

Interestingly, only the first two Featured Sliders (All category and Business category) appear on the individual WordPress entry page/s. All three widgets have exactly the same settings, and I have refreshed the customiser, reinstalled, republished and double checked a thousand times.

Thoughts?

and go to that individual WordPress entry page, multiple Featured Sliders appear at the top.

Can you confirm that you are working with WP’s default “Posts”, as opposed to a custom post type?

Hi, I don’t know what a ‘custom post’ is I’m afraid. I’ve tried googling it, but it looks a bit mind boggling.

The only change I have made is to create a blank Posts page, which I have set as a Static Posts page. I have put no coding on that Static Posts page at all, and I have no plugins installed other than what I have previously listed above. So I hope that answers your question.

And these Featured Sliders are implemented as Widgets?

Are you assigning multiple categories to a single Post? If you’ve categorized a post as both “All”, and “Business”, then each corresponding slider widget would be displayed.

Jason – I think you may have answered one of my Qs. After going through this multiple times in my head (I’m sorry, I’m getting tired now lol and I need my coffee), I believe I understand what you are saying. In my head, I had a completely different idea of how the categories widget functioned.

However I still have posted my initial reply below in full detail so that other people can follow along too step by step without images or a live preview.

I think the mistake that I made below (shown right at the end) will help others understand better just what exactly it is that I’m doing wrong, so that they can work it out for themselves. So I don’t expect you to go through the whole lot.

If I have any other Qs, I’ll tag you in this after x

Thanks kindly for your help and support.

–

Pipdig – Post Slider Options / Configuration

So the Featured Sliders are Pipdig Widgets called Pipdig – Post Slider. The options this plugin offers by default are:

• Title: (Blank – chosen Featured)
• Select Categories: (Uncategorised, All, Business, Lifestyle etc)
• Date Range For Posts: (All time, 1 week, 1 month, 1 year)
• Number of Posts To Show: (Blank – default 4, chosen 4)
• Slider Height in Pixels: (Blank – default 360, chosen 500)
• Display Post Titles: (Yes, No, On Hover)
• Post Title Length Limit (in words): (Blank – default 4, chosen 10)

After that, Widget Display Control ON takes over:

• ON Show/Hide on Front Page
• Categories:
  ON Enable Post Logic and
  Show/Hide
  on Posts in selected categories.
  
  OFF ALL Categories (or select below)
  OFF Include Sub-categories automatically
• ON Category: (Relevant category for each category: All, Business, Education, Travel)

–

Pipdig – Post Slider Installation / Location / Configuration

Each Pipdig – Post Slider widget has been installed under Widgets > Header (Full Width) and has it’s own select category.

On each category page, the Pipdig – Post Slider displays just fine with one featured slider per category. None of the widgets have been double marked as displaying on more than one category.

So for example:

(Business Category Page)

[Featured Slider: Business posts]

[Business Category Posts displaying by default in theme style
Ex: Top 10 Reasons Why I Use WordPress
Ex: Top 10 Reasons Why I Left LinkedIn
Ex: Top 10 Reasons Why.. etc]

and

(Education Category Page)

[Featured Slider: Education posts]

[Business Category Posts displaying by default in theme style
Ex: Top 10 Reasons Why I Still Use BBC Bitesize
Ex: Top 10 Reasons Why I Like YouTube Documentaries
Ex: Top 10 Reasons Why.. etc]

When I select an individual WordPress post (such as Top 10 Reasons Why I Use WordPress), and I go to that WordPress post page, it will display both the Business and Education Pipdig – Post Sliders on that individual post.

(Top 10 Reasons Why I Use WordPress post)

[Featured Slider: Business posts]
[Featured Slider: Education posts]
X [Featured Slider: Travel posts]

[Main post – Top 10 Reasons Why I Use WordPress]
[Social Media follow section – disabled]
[Comment section – disabled]
etc

There is a third Pipdig – Post Slider (lets say Travel) which has exactly the same configuration. This one does not display on the individual WordPress posts as a third Pipdig – Post Slider, and is invisible which is exactly how it should be. However it displays fine on it’s own category posts page (just not the individual posts.)

I do not want any of the Pipdig – Post Slider s to display on the individual posts full stop, but I am stuck here as to what to do with what I have to begin with.

–

Posts Category Configuration

I have a category called All at the moment. I created this category so that I could have more control over what displayed and didn’t display on the All category posts page, incase Uncategorised was interfering with anything.

I am not particularly fussed as to whether I publicly use the All category or not, as I can link back to the individual categories myself. But I wanted to separate posts when I was experimenting with the widgets.

(Top 10 Reasons Why I Use WordPress post)

Categories marked: All, Business

This means that this individual post (Top 10 Reasons Why I Use WordPress) should be displayed within the Pipdig – Post Slider for All, and the separate Pipdig – Post Slider for Business.

These are two completely separate widgets that have been installed under Widgets > Header (full width) with their own separate configurations.

So the end result should be that on the Business category and individual Business posts, only one Pipdig – Post Slider should be displayed.

You may want to consider switching to Widget Logic, which can give more precise control over widgets, as your use case is pretty advanced: https://www.ads-software.com/plugins/widget-logic/

Conditional Widgets is targeted at basic uses of widget areas (sites with a sidebar and/or footer).

Thanks for the recommendation. However, it seems that Widget Logic has recently been taken over, and according to the reviews and support forum there is a lot of malicious code being added at the moment. So I did not download it, as every fix that has been posted has been countered by the developers?

Edit: I tried Widget Logic anyway on an identical WordPress (set up for this test) to see if it had been fixed.

I set the conditions:

is_category( $category ) as is_category( $lifestyle ) and this worked great on the category itself. The Pipdig – Post Slider did not appear in the individual posts anymore.

However, when I installed a second Pipdig – Post Slider and set the conditions as is_category( $business ) , both sliders continued to appear on the Category page – and all the posts have their own category. There are no posts marked with more than one category.

It might be worth me checking with Pipdig to see if anything in their theme coding is interfering, as it seems very strange that both plugins would do this.

Therefore it seems possible only to have a featured slider for my All category.

Having said that, my posts will be appearing on a Static Posts page not a category. So… this will have to be tested out next to see if this works. It’s not perfect, but it seems to function well.

However I won’t be able to install it on my main WordPress currently, as I don’t know whether it is safe or reliable to use.

Thank you kindly for all your help and support so far! ??

• This reply was modified 1 week, 1 day ago by es90.
• This reply was modified 1 week, 1 day ago by es90.

Wow – thanks for the heads up on Widget Logic. I hadn’t seen or heard of that, but I think it might be wise to steer clear of that for a while. Unfortunately, I don’t have another suggestion at this time. Classic widget use in general is largely phasing out in favor of more block-based site development. Frankly, if I was building a new site from scratch, I’d likely be going in a route that doesn’t use widgets, either – but that’s beyond the scope of these support forums. Good luck with your project!