Comments on: Replacing “sidebar” in WordPress

By: Sandro

Sandro — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 16:41:35 +0000

The term sidebar doesn’t sound too bad to me, and I guess it describes its function pretty well. I actually wouldn’t like it to see it replaced. Among the other suggested terms, “widget area” would be fine to me, although a bit too much typing.

By: Dave

Dave — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 17:04:25 +0000

I’d like to throw “precincts” into the pot ;o)

By: WhiskeyJim

WhiskeyJim — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 19:19:24 +0000

Been awhile since I visited the great WP guru site:)

I like ‘modules’ because it describes the true functionality of a sidebar’s only half functional purpose. Inspired developers are doing two things which are not necessarily connected; developing functionality in ‘widgets’ and plug-ins, and making themes which define where that functionality is placed. WP should more formally separate the two ideas and free up the whole design process.

There is a basic core of functions (Heading, post article, footer, print function, zoom, menu, meta, comments) that should arguably be available out of the box in any theme so that users can utilize themes straight out of the box.

But the user or developer should be able to place website functions or elements (including headings, posts, footers, print functions, menus, meta, comments) in modules anywhere on the screen. Themes would then be a set of predefined ‘templates’ incorporating a combination of functions that users could choose for each page, or create additional ones themselves.

Think of the Blogger design interface for a constrained illustration. Headway gets a lot closer, allowing graphical drag and drop design, but it slows the site down because the functionality should be in the core (I also believe WP should be compilable, so to speak, into html without so many calls during page generation).

If you get my meaning, then even the posts area is really just a function to be placed inside a module. The idea of a separate widget area in the WP core, separate from built-in functions, would disappear; developers would merely add their own inspirations to the base functions that are shipped with WP in the first place. In other words, ‘plug-ins’ would download into the same place that posts, etc. reside.

In still other words, the post loop is just a widget treated differently and hard coded. I believe the WP core structure ultimately slows down the WP engine, especially as plug-ins with varying quality are added. The whole thing should be built with modularity in mind, which would naturally clean up a great deal of current widget and plug-in leaks and errors, and free up the whole website design process.

This modularity approach would also provide developers like Justin with the potential for a fantastic leap forward in functionality:)

By: John

John — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 03:38:27 +0000

“siderbar” is good for me!

By: Who’s Who in WordPress (50+ people you should be following) | WPCandy

Who’s Who in WordPress (50+ people you should be following) | WPCandy — Sat, 04 Sep 2010 07:09:09 +0000

[...] 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. [...]

By: Tony

Tony — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 04:26:17 +0000

I’d suggest ‘auxiliary’, or abbreviated to ‘aux’.
We use it for audio etc . . .

Otherwise, ‘Supplementary’ is a good one.

auxBar? auxBlock?
suppBar? suppBlock?

By: Tom

Tom — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 03:06:25 +0000

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.

By: Peter

Peter — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 17:14:08 +0000

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.

By: andri

andri — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 17:20:08 +0000

I still confuse using the theme… when i need to hide the widget where can i do that?

By: gstorm

gstorm — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 09:25:10 +0000

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.