Unique Page Sidebars

This plugin allows for the creation and management of widget sidebars on a per-page basis from a single dynamic_sidebar() call in your theme sidebar.

Author:Andrew Ryno (profile at wordpress.org)
WordPress version required:3.0
WordPress version tested:3.4.2
Plugin version:0.2
Added to WordPress repository:22-12-2011
Last updated:29-08-2012
Warning! This plugin has not been updated in over 2 years. It may no longer be maintained or supported and may have compatibility issues when used with more recent versions of WordPress.
Rating, %:60
Rated by:4
Plugin URI:http://andrewryno.com/plugins/unique-page-sid...
Total downloads:10 496
Active installs:200+
plugin download
Click to start download

Over the years developing WordPress themes, I have had many designs that require a different sidebar for just about every page on the site. While it has been possible to accomplish this using a combination of PHP if/else statements or plugins, I have yet to find a decent solution for managing sidebars on a page-by-page basis. Since many of the sites I now work on require this functionality, I decided it was time to write a rather simple but effective plugin that handles this. Therefore, I’m introducing Unique Page Sidebars.

There are obviously some limitations to this plugin, and I don’t expect me to use it on every site I develop, but I chose the most common use-case I have for needing dynamic sidebars, and developed this plugin to fit that need. That said, here is a list of features:

  • Creating an unlimited number of sidebars, each with customizable names, descriptions and before/after title/widget tags (see options of register_sidebar() on the WordPress codex)
  • Mapping any of the created sidebars to anywhere from 1 to unlimited number of pages
  • Only one line of code needed in your theme
  • Can easily default to a default sidebar

However, there are a few drawbacks (some of which I’m looking to working out in subsequent versions):

  • Only one sidebar per-page
  • No ‘default’ options for new sidebars