Forum-specific sidebar

[sooskriszta]

There is a plugin called bbPress WP Tweaks ​http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/bbpress-wp-tweaks/

What it proposes is very interesting. It was created so that the admin could relace the WordPress standard sidebar with a forum-specific sidebar on forum pages.

When forum page is loaded then forum-specific sidebar will be displayed. If nothing has been placed in forum-sidebar (widget area) then regular WordPress sidebar will be shown... You can choose which forum wrapper template to use.

The aim is great but the plugin doesn't work. This should be part of the core software as in my estimation, it would be useful for 90%+ of all bbPress users.

[johnjamesjacoby]

Valid, and easy enough to accomplish. Moving to 2.1.

[jaredatch]

Wouldn't this be easier to do on a as-needed basis in the theme?

I think it's a good idea but coming up with a way to implement where it would work with a wide variety of themes could be tricky depending on how they're setup - what do you think jjj?

[jaredatch]

After giving this some thought, I think it might be better of this was included in future "theme packs" than in bbP core, if not perhaps a separate plugin. For example I put this feature in the upcoming bbPress Genesis Extend plugin and it was painless.

Not sure if you want to create a separate milestone for them, etc.

[johnjamesjacoby]

Per jared's feedback, moving to 2.2 for review in the next cycle.

[sooskriszta]

Clarification: I mean bbpress-specific sidebar. (NOT forum-specific in the sense of either a sidebar just for the forum page only or different sidebars for each forum)

[jaredatch]

Unfortunately there really is no easy way. How is bbPress supposed to account for multiple widget areas/sidebars? Widget areas used in the header? etc

I've talked about it with jjj, but their doesn't seem to me a good solution that will reliably work for all themes since each each handles sidebars differently.

[sooskriszta]

How is bbPress supposed to account for multiple widget areas/sidebars?

Well, that's the thing...bbPress shouldn't really care about the existing widget areas and widgets. On the bbPress pages, you just wipe off the sidebars, and instead put one of your own. In this sidebar, you have bbPress-specific widget area(s). A single widget area per sidebar would do. But you can have more if you like, including page-type specific ones e.g. forums list widget area, forums (topics list) widget area, topics widget area etc

Widget areas used in the header? etc

Well, as I said, bbPress doesn't bother about it. If there's a widget area in header, it remains. Why? Technically, because it's not in a sidebar. Practically, because when people put stuff in header, they want it to persist.

[sooskriszta]

The easy (inelegant) way to do this would be to look inside div main and nuke everything that's inside div main but not inside div container. And then inserting a bbPress sidebar...

Of course, I'm no programmer. I'm sure jjj and you will have an elegant solution...

[johnjamesjacoby]

All good suggestions, and I think it's a great idea. I'm not confident I love any of the solutions enough to put the work into it yet. There's no way we can confidently noop the correct sidebar output yet, and I'd hate to make any assumptions that break existing installations.

I'm moving this back into Future Release, so we can keep brainstorming and come back to this later.