A Graceful Sidebar Plugin
Here’s a WordPress plugin created to enable you to control and customize the sidebar content for pages and posts. To use the plugin, unzip the contents into your wp-content/plugins/ directory. It will create a directory called graceful_sidebar.
Once installed, and activated, create custom fields for a page or post called graceful_title and graceful_content. When you view the page or post, a sidebar will display showing the content of the title and content fields.
Or – use the newly created Graceful Title and Graceful Content boxes that are now (as of version 1.0.4) a part of the plugin installation… this allows you to supply the title and content for your custom sidebar right in the post or page edit screen – without having to create a custom field and remember the custom field names.
Next, simply visit the widgets page and make sure you drag the Graceful Sidebar widget to one of your theme’s sidebars.
Download from http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/graceful-sidebar-plugin/
Are you using this plugin for your site? If so, leave a comment and tell me about it. Also, please remember to rate the script on the WordPress plugin site.
Hi, thanks for this great plugin! Works fine for me! MANY THANKS!
Just the widget I was looking for to give me the ability to change photos on the sidebars with different pages.
Philip, Thanks very much for using the plugin and for providing feedback… and for your generous donation! I truly appreciate your kindness.
Hi Mike,
Great plugin! I just modified the gs_widget function in order to avoid an empty box appearing on pages for which no graceful menu has been defined:
function gs_widget($args) {
global $post;
if (is_single() || is_page()) {
extract($args);
$gs_widget_options = unserialize(get_option(‘gs_widget_options’));
$title = get_post_meta($post->ID, ‘graceful_title’, true);
if($title) {
echo $before_widget;
echo $before_title;
echo $title;
echo $after_title;
$content = get_post_meta($post->ID, ‘graceful_content’, true);
if($content) {
echo $content;
}
echo $after_widget;
}
}
}
Thanks Peter! The only issue here is if someone doesn’t supply a graceful_title – but does supply a graceful_content custom field the sidebar won’t appear. The question is – Should sidebar’s appear if they don’t have a title? Perhaps we need an option for this which will enable folks to set a default title…?
This plugin is something I’ve been looking for for so long! I have a question though: is it possible to insert the code for it manually in the template instead of adding a widget under “Appearance”?
Just curious, why not use the existing Justin Tadlock My Snippets plugin?
http://justintadlock.com/archives/2009/12/03/my-snippets-wordpress-plugin
Seems easier than remembering custom field names.
Using the fields provided by the plugin does not work for me. I have to manually select the custom fields…
Li-an, thanks for reporting this bug… it should be fixed in version 1.0.6 – just checked into the wordpress plugin site.
I am getting a lot of flukey things happening to my site where my graceful sidebar data is disappearing when I randomly update a plugin, manage comments, etc.
Any ideas?
Adam,
I think it may have something to do with the way I’m saving the meta data… I need to do some testing… What version of the plugin are you using?
Mike
1.06
Thanks for the response Mike. I am using version 1.06.
Adam, I’ve updated the plugin to version 1.07 after some testing. I replace the way I’m storing the values for the title and content and this should clear up and problems…. fingers crossed.
A possible cause was that I was using standard custom fields to store the values. This meant that they displayed in the post edit screen in both my custom field input fields AS WELL as the standard custom post fields.
Version 1.07 should be out of testing shortly and available for upgrade through the automated process from Wordress.
Sorry for the issues – and please let me know if the errors persist.
I think i have the same problem as Adam and im working with 1.0.7. It keeps deleting the info on the page, when I update the site or edit the style.css uploading by http://ftp...
Hope you get it working. Cause it seems a great tool… Greets
Thanks…. Pretty I nailed it with v1.0.8 but will retest.
Yeah.. same problem with 1.0.7… looking forward to the update.
Hey! Congrats on the new job! I *stupidly* upgraded to WordPress 3.0.4 and now the sidebar doesn’t really work super well… Well, it works sometimes, and other pages I keep putting it in and saving it and it never comes through. You can check out my test site to see what the hell I’m talking about: here is a page where the sidebar is working: http://tcg.lawsitehosting.com/?page_id=21 and here is one where it isn’t working anymore: http://tcg.lawsitehosting.com/?page_id=15 Any idea what I am doing wrong? Thanks Mike!
This plugin solved a frustrating Kubrick sidebar issue wherein the page list inclined rightward per page title; this created a long, awkward looking oblique slant down my blog page. I tried a lot of sweat-busting, cuss-causing remedies, but all failed. This had been ongoing since last spiring. Today, on this wonderful 12th day of 2011 CE, I found GRACEFUL SIDEBAR— a simple and effective solution.
The issue is completely solved. I have a beautifully straight and neat blog page column on my website. THANK YOU FOR THIS PLUGIN !
The problem actually was a WP parent page listing issue rather than a Kubrick issue.
Thanks for the feedback! Not sure if you’ve updated yet but I just released 1.0.10 today which solved a nasty bug related to saving and post revisions.
WHAT WERE THE SAVING ISSUES? THE POST REVISION ISSUES?
I REALLY DON’T WANNA UNDO THE GIFT I’VE JUST RECEIVED BY CHANGING TO AN UPDATE.
The problems were related to the fact that wordpress actually executes the plugin save code multiple times based on the number of revisions in the current code. My code incorrectly tested for content conditions and deleted the graceful content / title under certain circumstances. This manifested itself in a condition where content would simply disappear when you edited pages and didn’t update the graceful content / title.
If you’re not experiencing this – you should be fine. Apologies for the problems.
Nice.. thanks a lot for the plugin.. will definitely come handy with Widget Logic.
thanks for pointing to your plugin, that’s an easy way to display content in the sidebar
The custom fields graceful_title and graceful_content work just fine in regular posts, but those custom fields are not showing up in a custom post type. should be easy to add?
I can not get short codes to work within the content field at all.
Was wondering if there’s a way to add a second instance of Graceful Sidebar to the same page (i.e. – two sidebar areas in a template). On top of that, does the Graceful Sidebar only accommodate text content or is it possible to feed it with posts in a specific category?
I just logged on to a site I’m working on for a client, and all of my custom sidebars are gone. The Graceful panes within the posts are blank. I’m talking two days worth of coding these custom sidebars for dozens of posts. If ANYBODY has any idea what could have happened and if these are recoverable, it’d be hugely appreciated.
Thanks!
I love the ability to customize pages. However, I still do want to show Recent Posts and Categories for my blog posts. How do I do that? I do not want these items to show up on my web pages; only my blog posts. Thank you!
This is JUST what I’ve been looking for. Can’t wait to try it out. Am I right in thinking that there’s no way to put a Graceful title/content box on the home page (unless it’s set up as a static page)? I can live with that; I just want to make sure I’m not missing something obvious.
Found a small bug. When I put an apostrophe in the Graceful Title, all the text from the apostrophe onward appears in the title but doesn’t save to the field, so if I update the page in the future but don’t notice the text that’s been wiped from the Title field, my title will appear truncated from that point on (or until I edit the field again).
Can I use code in the custom field? like..
I havent gotten it to work so far.
Thanks for your plugin, i’ve been searching a long time for it!
I’m trying to use shortcode but it’s does not work, with the plugin JW Player. The plugin’s shortcode is [jwplayer ...].
It works when i use it in a post.
Thanks for your help.
Hi, thank you for this amazing plugin!
Just one issue: I’m using a multilingual plugin (qtranslate) which enables to have different languages for each page. But with Graceful Sidebar I can customize only one language per page… is there any chance I can have the sidebar of a page different for each language?
thank you in advance!
Paola
Its a nice plugin and works well for Pages and Posts…but I have custom post types as “Ads” …. can you please tell how to make it work for custom post type…
TIA
pankaj