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WordPress

Darren Healy
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.a{fill-rule:evenodd;}techdegree
Darren Healy
Front End Web Development Techdegree Student 23,565 Points
Posted by Darren Healy
.a{fill-rule:evenodd;}techdegree
Darren Healy
Front End Web Development Techdegree Student 23,565 Points

How to add and use different sidebars for different pages in Wordpress?

I want to be able to use a different sidebar for a different page on my Bootstrap to Wordpress blog site.

Basically I am happy displaying the main sidebar on nearly all of my pages but one; the contact page.

I would like for the sidebar on the contact page to display a sidebar with it's own unique content.

Now, I have tried to tinker with it a bit, but I can't seem to get it to work.

Here's what I have done so far:

1) Added this to my functions.php file:

create_widget( 'Contact Sidebar', 'contact', 'Displays on the side of contact pages with a sidebar' );

2) Created a new contact.php file to act as a new page template selectable in the admin area:

<?php
/*
  Template Name: Contact Page with Sidebar
*/

?>
<?php get_header(); ?>

  <div class="container">   
    <div class="row">

      <div class="col-md-9">

        <?php if ( have_posts() ) : while ( have_posts() ) : the_post(); ?>

          <div class="page-header">
            <h1><?php the_title(); ?></h1>
          </div>

          <?php the_content(); ?>

        <?php endwhile; else: ?>

          <div class="page-header">
            <h1>Oh no!</h1>
          </div>

          <p>No content is appearing for this page!</p>

        <?php endif; ?>


      </div>

      <?php get_sidebar('contact'); ?>

    </div>

<?php get_footer(); ?>

3) I created a contact-sidebar.php file (but I'm not sure why, I just followed the procedure before when creating a sidebar for the blog)

<div class="col-md-3 sidebar">

    <?php if ( ! dynamic_sidebar( 'contact' ) ): ?>

    <h3>Sidebar Setup</h3>
    <p>Please add widgets to the contact sidebar to have them display here.</p> 

    <?php endif; ?>

</div>

4) Added my page in the admin area, used the template, BUT it loads up the page sidebar:

create_widget( 'Page Sidebar', 'page', 'Displays on the side of pages with a sidebar' );

Zac Gordon I know you are lurking around the forum just now... :)

2 Answers

Darren Healy
seal-mask
.a{fill-rule:evenodd;}techdegree
Darren Healy
Front End Web Development Techdegree Student 23,565 Points
Darren Healy
.a{fill-rule:evenodd;}techdegree
Darren Healy
Front End Web Development Techdegree Student 23,565 Points

False alarm, the problem was the name of my file. I had called it contact-sidebar.php, when it should have been sidebar-contact.php.

Thanks again Zac you legend.

Zac Gordon
STAFF
Zac Gordon
Treehouse Guest Teacher
Zac Gordon
Zac Gordon
Treehouse Guest Teacher 
get_sidebar('custom');

Will load sidebar-custom.php.