Support » Themes and Templates » avoiding inactive widget area due to theme switch

  • I realize that when you switch themes, some widgets may go into the inactive widget area due to theme’s coding.

    Is it possible to have a default sidebar area, that if you put widgets in the top widget spot, that no matter which theme you use (as long as theme has a sidebar) your widgets would automatically move to that sidebar?
    Or have a tick box where by if we desire this feature, we can have it?

    Why? It would prevent the need of coding for non-coders.
    I’m trying to set up all my themes for theme switcher and find that I keep losing widgets and that unless all the themes are coded similarly, I may lose widgets that the users might need. And yes, I am going to use dynamic side bar (when I figure out the coding). Last time I tried something similar, I lost access to my website. I did it wrong.

    Many Thanks! If not really possible, oh well.

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  • From what I understand, WP does that to help preserve widget settings upon changing theme. Each theme assign different sidebar id, and also each widget in each sidebar has its own id too.

    There is no way to force all the themes to have the same amount of sidebars with the same set of id. So from theme A to theme B, widgets moved to inactive area with settings preserved.

    Thread Starter allergicvegetarian

    (@allergicvegetarian)

    I fully support WP saves the settings. I get that. Question 1: Is it WP assigning those ID numbers, or can the IT coder assign these ID numbers? If the coder can, then how does one do that? (I’m quickly learning that unless I learn PHP, I’ll have to hard code in HTML/CSS).

    Question 2:
    Can’t WP have us tick a box that makes ALL widgets we use automatically, by default go to whatever the TOP right box is in the widget area, with all the saved settings? Surely, if they can make it go to a default area on the bottom left, why can’t they put this in a sidebar top right box? (In whatever order WP chooses wouldn’t bother me at all as long as MY non-admin users can see it.) And, for the various themes, all themes would have a default sidebar box that the admin can move their widgets out of, if they don’t want to use it.

    Dynamic Sidebar code: Did not work. I tried it. The Dynamic sidebar widget hasn’t been tested on the latest WP and may not work. And, it requires editing of PHP files that may be updated and then every time there is an update, I’ll have to update the file. 😛 Not cool.

    Without this, Theme switchers are null and void by default except for child themes.

Viewing 2 replies - 1 through 2 (of 2 total)
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