I originally hopped on the kill the sidebar bandwagon around nine months ago. The movement I had hoped would spawn from this hasn’t really taken hold in the WordPress community. Many people are content with the way things are now.
This movement is about getting rid of “sidebar” and replacing it with a more-semantic name. I’m primarily writing about widget-ready areas that are not located on the side of a Web page.
Most developers understand that the term sidebar doesn’t have to mean a bar on the side of a theme. It can be a section positioned anywhere. However, to move forward, to make everyone really understand how widgets can be powerful tools and used anywhere, we need to shed this outdated terminology. We need to set a standard.
If a sidebar is supposed to be a sidebar and will never change, then by all means, call it a sidebar. But, what should I call a widget section in the header? I suppose I could call it Header Section, but WordPress will display this message on the Widgets screen:
You are using 1 widget in the “Header Section” sidebar.
Current suggestions for replacing sidebar
Right now, I want to focus on a standard naming convention for widget-ready areas. A few suggestions are:
- Aside
- Block
- Module
- Section
- Supplement
- Utility
- Widget Section
- Widget Area
The last two are two-word names, which seem to be a bit of a mouthful. They probably won’t go over well — they’re just not catchy enough.
My favorite term
Aside is something used in Ian Stewart’s Thematic to point out a widget-ready area. I don’t know where he got the idea from, but I suspect it was from HTML 5.
According to W3Schools,
The
<aside>tag defines some content aside from the article it is placed in. The aside content should be related to the article’s content.
I realize not everyone’s sidebars and other widget areas compliment a particular article’s content, but this is the most fitting idea I’ve seen.
Update: Realizing that some people have taken this the wrong way, I’d like to clear this part up. Aside as defined in HTML 5 is not the only definition. The term itself means to “to the side” (not necessarily in terms of location) or “apart from.”
If I had to pick a second favorite term, it would be Utility.
What are your suggestions for new terminology?
Whether you are pro- or anti-sidebar, I’d still like some suggestions on a standard naming convention. Even if WordPress forever uses the term sidebar, I’ll be making the change in my themes.
I figured it’d be better to see if the community would settle on a standard before making any changes.
So, the question is: What should we call widget-ready areas that are not sidebars?
“Aside” sounds the most reasonable to me… the others either remind me of code, are too verbose/long or don’t sound like they belong to a theme.
Coming from the land of Lego (Denmark), I would go with blocks, bricks or modules.
It gives the pages on a site a building metaphor, that I can relate to as a non-technical user.
Justin, my apologies if you’ve answered this a thousand times, but why do you think sidebar is not semantic? I always assumed it was a term borrowed from the print world where it refers to a brief news story presenting sidelights on a major story. And that it in fact was borrowed from the legal world where it means a conversation between the lawyers and the judge that is held out of the jury’s hearing. In other words, the side in sidebar does not refer to location but rather its relation to the main proceedings. Isn’t that the very definition of semantic?
By the way, I still think you should change the name, regardless of its semantic worthiness, just as a way to make people more mindful of its possibilities. I think that is why they stopped calling automobiles “horseless carriages.” So, with that in mind, my suggestions are mobilebar or flexibar if you still want to reflect its location, or something more poetic like sidestream or tributary if you want to stress its function. Yes. I’m serious.
We call them widget areas internally. Works for us and our clients. Currently building a site that creates them on the fly each time you use certain page templates, as many pages are nothing more than a whole pile of widget areas (9 each, typically) and sidebars sounds very wrong!
How about widgspots or wareas or widglocs (widget locations)…
Gotta start the brainstorming somewhere…
I actually prefer the last two. Calling them widget areas or widget sections or widget blocks. If I had to drop “widget” then I think I prefer block.
As as aside, the problem with aside is that it already exists in the WordPress Codex, and it means something else. http://codex.wordpress.org/Adding_Asides
If the widget screen is to display this:
…then I would suggest Block, Widget Area, or Widget Section.
or
These may be simplifying things a little to much, but as WordPress becomes more and more popular, anything else would be confusing to the average user.
quite interesting discussion …. still tough for me to digest … needs another read, sorry
From W3Schools
“The aside content should be related to the article’s content.”
this is seldom true for blogroll links or link to news around the net. You could have an article about an space shuttle crash and and a link to some news about a new teddy bear in the market.
I call them widget areas, that’s what they are, there’s no need to substitute the term with another term. In special custom themes don’t even use the get_sidebar but the includepath with the name of the widget area.
Widget section could work too, widget tray. However, it would be nice to identify them with a single word.
Asides, as defined in HTML 5 are not appropriate for this. They have a specific semantic connection to the article which wouldn’t be true of most widgets.
HTML 5 uses sections to define areas on the page. It seems to be as though a sidebar that is not in the sidebar (or even if it is really) is just a section into which content can be placed, so just called it a section.
It is usually best to go with terminology that already means the thing you are describing.
I like where Adam is going..
A couple suggestions I’ve seen in use outside of WordPress for basically the same thing:
* pods
* regions
Or you could call them what you’d call ‘em if you were just looking at the HTML:
* divs
I’m liking “block” and “section” (not widget section) the most. It might not be the most understandable names at first, but widgets have the possibility of getting placed anywhere in the theme.
btw, kill the word module. It brings back some terrible old memories :/
I like to think from the point of view of someone who isn’t technically-literate.
Although “aside” is a semantic, technical term brought forth in HTML 5, I prefer the more, natural-sounding “block”.
I too would go for “Widget Section” or -Area; it might be somewhat of a mouthfull, but it in my opinion it represents best what it is (as in: most Dummy Proof).
BTW: I never noticed how WP showed the widget sections the (unlogical) way it does, until I read it here
Even so I totally agree it needs an update.
Jason — I like it to, but I’m not sure how semantic it would be.
Thomas — I like “modules” a lot.
Erin — Sidebar would not be semantic for the same reason Aside is probably not semantic (in this sense) — relation to the main content is not a given. I would argue that sidebar does refer to location here though. Whether it does or not, most users will see it that way.
David Coveney — I typically call them widget areas when talking to my users as well. It just seems like a mouthful, and I would like a one-word term.
Cellobella — Now, that’s the spirit!
I’m glad to see someone brainstorming.
Jason — I never understood the reasoning behind asides as they exist in WordPress. I doubt this one’s going to win out though.
Adam — Looking at it that way is a good way to do so. If it were just shown in that screen, I would definitely go with “widget area” or “widget section.”
I kind of only want one word so we can name files
something-footer.phpinstead ofsidebar-footer.php.dinu — No worries.
Elliot — Asides may not be the best term, but it does sound cool. Mostly, I’m looking for that one, identifiable term to kind of group these types of sections.
Andrew — I like section too. I’m not sure if aside is best, but I do think they sound neat.
TheFrosty — Adam definitely has some good points.
Roger — “Pods” sound cool. I can’t even believe I didn’t think of “region” though.
Ptah Dunbar — I’m starting to think that keeping it very simple is the best idea.
Why does “module” bring back terrible old memories?
Ray — Aside actually may not be semantic in this situation. Block may be more semantic and easier to understand.
Tibor — My other big issue with using “widget area” or “section” is function and file naming:
It just gets a bit long sometimes. For the most part, I like calling them what they are — widget areas/sections.
I call it zone(s).
The one on the side is still sidebar, other placement, I call them zone.
Top Heade Zone
Top Post Zone
Bottop Post Zone
Footer Zone
I like “modules” the best myself. The term has worked well for Joomla. The actual definition seems to be exactly what we’re discussing…
mod⋅ule (noun) – a separable component, frequently one that is interchangeable with others, for assembly into units of differing size, complexity, or function.
I like the term “widget area” or in one word warea (or w-area). My second preference is widget section (wsection). And then if I must chose from the posted list I prefer block or section.
I really don’t like “asides”. It implies a relation between the post/page, that doesn’t necessarily exist. I can imagine that being rather confusing to newbies.
Sidebar is a location, as would be topbar, bottombar or whatever.
A widget area should be named by its function, and since everyone is already calling it widget area, when they discuss ist – why not use that? If it’s too long for in-script-use, just use “widgets” as in “widgets-after-content.php” and “get_widgets(‘after-content.php’);” internally and “widget area” externally (in user interactions).
Oh, and “modules” would be more appropriate for plugins than for widgets.
Well, just my 2 cents.
Hello Justin,
While I appreciate your issue with sidebar, all of the solutions are worse than the problem.
Sidebar is pretty clear (it can even be a header).
Sure – we could call them navigation zones or widget zones or just zones but how is that better than sidebar now?
PS. I just noticed Pangeran suggested zones as well – perhaps zones might work then – if that’s what two of us came up with independently.
Pods reminds me of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Please not pods.
I will have to consider switching platforms if pods is adopted.
Glad someone have same opinion with me.
To try and clear up some confusion about the word “aside” in the post, I’ve updated it. I probably should’ve mentioned the actual definition for the word rather than just the HTML 5 definition. The term itself means “to the side,” “apart from,” or some variation of those two.
Pangeran — Zones might be a good choice.
Joe — I like modules as well. However, I feel like widgets themselves should be called modules according to your posted definition.
damjang — I like just using “widget area” or “widget section” except for when coding. For example, we have the
get_sidebar()function in WordPress. Ideally, we’d have something to replace it, and I don’t much likeget_widget_area()as it’s a little extra typing.Tobsy — Asides only imply that relationship in terms of the HTML 5 definition. I updated the post to better reflect the actual definition of the word.
Maybe we should just keep it as simple as possible though —
get_widgets()would work perfectly assuming it only loads widgets.Alec — I’ll have to disagree with part of your view.
Sure, many of know this. For us to move forward with more innovative thinking, there needs to be a standard (whatever that may be). The word sidebar just sounds like something that needs to be on the side of the page. I’m of the opinion that this stifles creativity, and I know from firsthand experience that it confuses many end users.
Luckily for you, pods is already in use for some plugin (not sure what it does).
Justin,
When will you make your decision?
Adam W. Warner — As for my decision, I’ve pretty much made it already. Right now, I’d much rather see what members of the community have to say. If there was some sort of movement for a standard, I’d make the necessary changes in my themes. It seems there’s not enough agreement on a single term just yet, but I’m hoping this discussion (and possibly others like it on other blogs) will get the WordPress developers’ attention.
I think the most important thing is to use plain English. Ask some fool off the street what they would call part of the page that has been divided so it is apart from the main content so that other content can be put into it. (try explaining that without using any of the terms already mentioned)
It needs to make sense to someone coming from another platform who knows nothing about WordPress and, quite possibly, nothing about HTML. It also needs to not confuse matters when someone does know HTML. For example, if HTML had a tag then we that should only be used to name some WP functionality if it is actually that tag that will be used, in the way the specs intend.
In that way you shouldn’t use Aside because you could be talking about an HTML aside or a WP aside. I also think widgets are a bad description because the word doesn’t mean anything. Module sounds realistic but it also sounds like it is describing the WP functionality instead of the content and it is the end content that actually matters. What if you wanted to add content to a ‘content-place’ without using a widget or module?
To call it a zone is no good idea.
My favorite is module or mod, second would be block. Both to me mean they can be used anywhere. Sidebar indicates it must be used or is only on the side. I would just be happy if they chose something that didn’t indicate it’s location specific. They could actually keep “sidebar” and add a new term for other locations.
I think, zones it a good idea. Im not a total newbie. But zone makes more sense. Aside might be friendly to developers but not to newbies or average users.
Zone makes perfect sense. Any one who dosent know whats a zone is a total goofball.
That said, i hope there’s a standard and i hope it will be out fast. As the longer they wait more terminology will appear and in the end it will just screw up the main idea.
As you can tell, naming things isn’t as easy as it appears. Asides do have a long history and is a specific search term when people are looking for “asides” in WordPress, so that name would cause confusion, which you don’t need for something as valuable as the WordPress Widgets that break the sidebar barrier. That’s ground breaking, so give them the respect and unique value they deserve.
As someone who has spent much of her life as an editorial technical writer, choosing the name of something that you want to have great use and repeated coverage is very hard. Two examples are the naming of “Pages” in WordPress (Pages with a cap P not lower case to differentiate it from web “pages” which can be posts or Pages – don’t get me started on that stupid decision of which I was a part of and lost) and Dashboard, which is actually used to represent the administration area of a competitor, and should not have been used, but was, though it only represents one panel in the WordPress Administration Panels, which others call the “dashboard” by mistake, making the competitor unhappy at times.
It’s best to avoid all such confusion.
Personally, my recommendation would be as simple as others have mentioned repeatedly here. K.I.S.S.
Call them WordPress Widgets and announce that they have broken the sidebar barrier. Their placement is based upon where they are to be found within the WordPress template files, such as the header, footer, post content, sidebar 1, sidebar 2, category, archives, author, etc.
Why not create a WordPress Widget that only appears on Author template files?
Remember, you are dealing with WordPress Widgets. Google’s got Widgets, Yahoo’s got Widgets, everyone’s got Widgets. So you have to be very specific with which kind of Widgets you are talking about, as well as where their specific use would be.
For those WordPress Widgets that break the sidebar barrier to be displayed anywhere in your WordPress Theme, then call them “breakout WordPress Widgets” or “Unlimited WordPress Widgets” to classify them separately. After all, why can’t I put the most recent posts lists in my header? Why not?
Thank you for bringing this up. It has long been an issue with me on many levels. And I do hope you are listening to the input as you are hearing some resounding truth. Which means that no matter what you think the words should be, the community will call it what they will.
I’ve been having the exact same naming issue so I’m reading this post with a lot of interest. It is becoming an issue as wordpress themes evolve away from standard formats and widget use over the entire page is becoming common. having three widget columns in a footer and calling them sidebars is silly.
I’ll throw my vote in for ‘module’
Andrew — Aside is not really important here. Mostly, it’s about getting the creative juices flowing. I like modules instead of widgets much more than for the widget areas.
EinBauStrahler — Maybe. Maybe not. The real question is: Do you have a term that’s better?
Deb — Module seems to be gaining popularity around here. I like the term sidebar when it’s used for an actual sidebar, but otherwise, I like to keep things pretty generic.
iman — Well, it looks like we have another vote for zone.
I’ll have to add this to my list of favorite quotes.
I agree that we need a standard set. It’d be nice for one of the main WP.org developer’s to step in and decide on a name.
Lorelle — Naming things sure is tough. I’d prefer not to do it myself. Now, if we could only get Matt on board here with an official name, all would be well.
If nothing else, I’ll end up just sticking with the plain ol’ widget area.
christopher — Well, module seems to be racking up the votes. I’m hoping we’ll start moving to some sort of standard here.
I’m behind this all the way.
How about calling them “boxes”? Boxes come in all kinds of shapes and sizes and you put stuff (like widgets) in boxes… Clients should have an easy time with that one.
So we need a new term to describe widgets…
There’s been an interesting discussion on Justin Tadlock’s blog about replacing “sidebar” in WordPress. It originally spawned 10 months ago by Ian Stewart, but no progress has been made. It seems as if Justin already choose what he fe……
[...] Justin fills his blog with great stuff about WordPress, like recently when he shared his thoughts on how WordPress needs to adjust the “sidebar” name to be something more accurate. [...]
I’m not a huge fan of “module,” although I can’t pinpoint why. “Boxes” is too general — usually “sidebar” denotes anything that’s not the main content section, but since the main content section could itself be called a “box”, you lose the distinction.
So I’ll throw my own suggestion into the mix: “peripheral”.
Widgetary – a place for keeping widgets confined.
I like “tray” mentioned by Elliot
dave — I’m not a big fan of boxes — almost seems like they must be shaped like a box. But, as you’ve said, clients should be able to figure it out easily enough.
Michael — Now, if there ever was a word that’s hard for me to say, it’s peripheral. I think it has something to do with my Southern accent.
You touch on the idea of the main content area, which is something should’ve mentioned in the post — the content area itself can be a widget area. In fact, I have a widget in beta that can be used for exactly that.
DNN — Interesting.
Jason — I must’ve missed tray. It’s not my favorite term, but at least we’re thinking here.
In HTML and Web design, the term “sidebar” has come to mean “an area that has either specific functionality or micro content.” In the world of blogging and blog software this usage might have changed a little, yet still retains the general spirit. If the main content area is akin to a “line function” the sidebar area is like a “staff function” in organizations. A blog can exist without a sidebar but not without the content area. At the same time, tying the name to widgets may be near-sighted as different functionality will arrive for this I’m sure. Keep in mind that the functionality now associated with the sidebar will likely be available for other parts of a theme, so a new term must not refer to its position.
With this frame in mind, a few names come to my mind:
drop box
function box
function room
mini arena
function drop (frop?)
staff box
locker
functionium (I’m going out on a limb here!)
… and considering that the meaning may be assigned to any symbol, word, or sign this kind of area in a theme or layout can be called essentially anything. “Window box”, “flower bed”, or plain old gibberish “F-spot” of which multiples may exist in a theme.
My two cents’ worth.
Hi Justin. Thought I’d chime in since there are a few comments in this thread where you wish there was an official response. We haven’t been talking about changing the names of widgets/sidebars in this release, though we have been working on making widget management better (turns out, it’s really hard!).
Personally, I’ve never been fond of the use of the term ‘widget’ because some of our widgets are just navigation modules (I tend toward the word module over widget unless describing the insertion of third-party functionality, like with the Flickr widget, but that’s just me), and I do agree that ’sidebar’ isn’t always description based on position. I like some of the suggestions made here.
I’m just the UI/UX person, so there may be technical considerations that make updating the names undesirable that I’m not aware of, but I can promise to at least get a conversation started with the core devs about it. Wouldn’t be on the table for 2.8 since it’s almost freeze time, but we’ve been thinking about some other nav label updates and such in the next release cycle, so it’s a good time to start thinking about it. When we get there, if it is in fact open to re-naming, I can put up a poll on the dev blog or something to gauge community opinion.
Cemal — I definitely agree that it can be called anything. Really, it’s all about associating something that contains widgets with a “symbol,” as you say.
Jane Wells — Thanks for taking the time to reply. Believe me, I’ve looked at the code for widget management. I wouldn’t want to be the one to have to work on it.
This post was all about starting the conversation. If nothing else, it was to allow people to voice their opinions. Feel free to point the core devs to the comments here to let them see what people are thinking.
Heh Justin, I thought about this naming thing before, and you are right on.
I guess it sidebars is quite inappropriate, but all the generic ones like area, module, zone etc all should work – I feel that it is the job of the theme user to read up and understand what the “area”, or “module” means.
Kian Ann — I agree. Pretty much any of the generic terms would work well. I’m just hoping we get something official or that the community can agree on a standard.
In KDE they’re called “panels.”
What about cubicles?
Cubicles are predefined areas with modular elements that can be arranged in various ways to perform different tasks. They are normally installed by professionals. However, the end user is given the ability to configure the area to match his or her needs based on both form and function.
I would really like to see them renamed. Offhand, I think the term “Widget Area” is clunky but very workable. I periodically have to explain to clients that the third sidebar in their theme is actually their footer or somesuch. Most of them get it quickly, but at first they’re just confused.
These clients do know what widgets are, so they’d get that. I think it would also propagate well into common usage. I’ve actually had clients moving off Blogger ask where the Footer widgets went (and had to explain to them that it’s not a given w/Wordpress).
I *hate* the term “aside”. Semantically that already has a meaning (a box pushed to the side of the content with related info). Not to mention I use “aside” already for a class in my personal CSS framework that styles a block-level element as an aside.
This is a bummer since I’m loving Thematic otherwise.
Drupal calls them “regions” which is a fine choice. Why not standardize terminology when we’re talking about the same thing? Drupal calls widgets “blocks”, so I really think that blocks would be a crazy-inducing choice for those of us who have to live in both worlds.
Widget area works for me just fine too! Just call them areas in the API if you don’t like two words in function names.
Caught you posting in the WP.org forums and thought I would drop by and take a peek at your blog and ended up finding this article.
Personally speaking, I call that ’sidebar’… whatever the heck I want to, depending on its functionality per site specifications and sometimes, location.
I’ve called it a sidebar because it’s aside from my normal content and it’s a long vertical bar. I’ve called it a sidecolumn because the theme I was working with called it a column in their style sheet. I’ve called it a navbar because its whole purpose in that particular theme was to provide navigation for the rest of the site. I’ve called it a topbar and bottombar because they were literally bars on either the top or the bottom of my layout. I have also called it simply, a widget container because my client wanted flexibility in where s/he placed the widget block and calling it a widget container seemed to suit their needs the best.
With that said, I definitely can see where the necessity for a new naming convention shows itself.
Sidebars do NOT have to be on the side and furthermore, like you mention in your post, the sidebar is often a container for widgets – widgets that people want to place elsewhere on their site and not just to the side of their main content.
Coming from working with total WP and front-end newbies, though, I have to say that the reason the sidebar terminology has yet to go anywhere fast is because even outside of the WP community a good majority of people tend to call that narrow strip that doesn’t feature their main content their ’sidebar’. Doesn’t matter what the ’sidebar’ contains or where exactly the ’sidebar’ is placed, but as long as it’s long and narrow either up and down or left and right, it’s called a ’sidebar’ or a something-bar. Navbar, topbar, bottombar, sidebar, candybar etc. … Okay, sort of joking with the candybar bit, but you get the point.
Sidebar – whether it makes sense to call it a sidebar or not – simply sounds ‘right’ to a lot of people and quite possibly because the front-end web development community (maybe the backend, too?), continues to call that narrow column or row a ’sidebar’.
In light of the fact that WP uses sidebars to house widgets and that you have to ‘widgetize’ your ’sidebar’, I, like you, really think that the sidebar needs to be named something that makes even MORE sense than ’sidebar’.
Widget block, widget area, widget container (I particularly am fond of that one as it implies that the widget is housed within it, but implies little else in terms of where it can be placed which in turn opens up possibilities), widget… something. Widget-ready Containers? Gah, I don’t know!
The sidebar can still be a sidebar, because… well, just saying it makes one picture a layout that has a main content and a narrower side column with whatever the user wants to put in it, but to limit the widgets to the term ’sidebar’ doesn’t sit right with me because the widgets themselves can and should be placed wherever the user sees fit.
… Would it be possible to keep the sidebar terminology and add a widget-specific terminology for containers dedicated specifically to widgets or would that simply compound the problem we’re already having with naming schematics?
Here’s a sample description:
Enigmatic-FLEX is a flexible-width 2 column design with a wide main content area along with a narrower sidebar area that is suitable for widgets and features additional widget-ready containers to be placed wherever they are necessary.
… Did that even make sense? Sorry if it didn’t!
Anyhow… I definitely agree with you for many reasons, but can see why the movement isn’t… moving and potentially won’t move. What confusion!
I agree completely with a name change! Widget can stay, but I’m not sure there needs to be another name other than the name you create for a widgetized area. If I create a header with a widgetized area and have one widget, then it should simply state ( if it needs to be stated it at all ) that I have 1 widget in the Header.
Lose ’sidbar’ for the general naming of these areas as WordPress has outgrown this nomenclature.
Great topic.
hit send by mistake …
As for a general all purpose name of widgetized content … Container. Simple and is what it is regardless of location … parent ‘container’.
Since we’re ‘plugging stuff in’ to these areas/regions/whatever, does the term ’socket’ make sense?
socket makes a lot of sense but whichever you choose it will be a battle to get it accepted, people in general don’t like change.
What about an acronym like WRA? But any name change will be difficult, as the above poster has mentioned, people don’t like change.
how about sidespot? sounds funny right
I like the term “widget area” or in one word warea (or w-area). My second preference is widget section (wsection). And then if I must chose from the posted list I prefer block or section.
With my clients, I refer to them as widgetized content areas. We used to call them content modules when we were using the kubrick content module (sbm), but that changed with the 2.7 upgrade – WP went to widgets and support for sbm was discontinued.
I’m a big fan of modules and the idea of modular development. My biggest frustration with widgets is that it seems limited to this sidebar area and in some cases, some WordPress functions misbehave if placed after a widget…
Just recently, I wanted to have the latest post excerpt of a specific category show up in the footer (so on all pages) and struggled with the loop over multiple files… I ended up repeating code and markup unnecessarily because I couldn’t get it to work. Of course, that’s the loop, but it’s also an example of where having that functionality in a widget in the FOOTER would be awesome
EMR said it: (widgetized) BAR(s). Then we can keep the use of side-bar for sides and have nav-BARS for navigation etc … menu-bar, top-bar, bottom-bar, this-bar, that-bar… (I did prefer panel, area or sections while drop box and tray seem horizontal etc.) In any case why go longer than just BAR with a side-bar-panel-section-area – Just stick the widgets in a BAR
I think modules would be better for when backpress is out. Modules could then be the components that hook into the framework. i.e. bbpress and wp would be modules.
Developers would then be able to create modules extending the basic framework.
This is where your other tutorials on custome taxonomies would really come in handy.
I think blocks better represent what the template is doing, creating widget blocks on the layout for the page.
I still confuse using the theme… when i need to hide the widget where can i do that?
I personally quite like the term sidebar, and think it describes the function rather well. I guess something like ‘widget space’ is a bit more web 2.0 and is also pretty apt.
I like “block” as in main block, header block, footer block, widget block. Now maybe “block” is not the right word, but my point is this discussion really seems to be about is the lack of a common term for all the building blocks that make up a WordPress-generated page. The sidebar is just one of those building blocks.