Title: Theme Development – stuck on sidebar
Last modified: August 24, 2016

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# Theme Development – stuck on sidebar

 *  [ariapictures](https://wordpress.org/support/users/ariapictures/)
 * (@ariapictures)
 * [11 years ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/theme-development-stuck-on-sidebar/)
 * Not sure if this is the right area, but I am frustrated and depleted of excitement…
   Just when I think I have it, I don’t.
 * I have created a theme from scratch (downloaded the basic files – from somewhere)
   and I am not going to go public with it. It is not designed for that purpose.
 * I have the header, footer, templates, and everything else working wonderfully,
   so I can add certain types of pages with custom fields, and such, you know…
 * Now I want to initiate the weblog, which I actually have working, of sorts, the
   styling is not finished…
 * THE PROBLEM: I cannot get the sidebar to work. I have downloaded several other
   themes to see how they have it set up with home.php, index.php, sidebar.php, 
   functions.php, and other files.
 * I even activate them instead of mine and it looks wonderful, go back to mine 
   and the two sample posts show on the weblog home page and when you click them
   the full article opens up, but the sidebar with the widgets does not show.
 * I even labelled the files to view in inspect element to follow the path, and 
   the files are loading that have get_sidebar() but no sidebar.
 * What are the basic connectivity settings in any file related to or connected 
   to the sidebar to get it to show?
 * I have copied and pasted code bits that the themes that are working into my functions
   and other files, but there must be one last little line I am missing. I know 
   there is a secret not given away. 😀
 * thanks for anyone wanting to help tackle this issue.
    – ap

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

 *  Thread Starter [ariapictures](https://wordpress.org/support/users/ariapictures/)
 * (@ariapictures)
 * [11 years ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/theme-development-stuck-on-sidebar/#post-6049475)
 * this is my testing sidebar.php file, and I just noticed that the #secondary was
   set to display none in inspecting elements in chrome, unchecked that and there
   is a menu, not wanting it of course but just testing to see what works, so the
   sidebar.php file is being accessed and does work…
 * HOWEVER, the widgets are not showing. Social does not work because I have no 
   social menu, it does if I create one…
 *     ```
       <?php
       if ( has_nav_menu( 'primary' ) || has_nav_menu( 'social' ) || is_active_sidebar( 'sidebar' )  ) : ?>
       	<div id="secondary" class="secondary">
       	<!-- SIDE BAR  file -->
          <?php dynamic_sidebar('sidebar'); ?>
   
       		<?php if ( has_nav_menu( 'primary' ) ) : ?>
       			<nav id="site-navigation" class="main-navigation" role="navigation">
       				<?php
       					// Primary navigation menu.
       					wp_nav_menu( array(
       						'menu_class'     => 'nav-menu',
       						'theme_location' => 'primary',
       					) );
       				?>
       			</nav><!-- .main-navigation -->
       		<?php endif; ?>
   
       		<?php if ( has_nav_menu( 'social' ) ) : ?>
       			<nav id="social-navigation" class="social-navigation" role="navigation">
       				<?php
       					// Social links navigation menu.
       					wp_nav_menu( array(
       						'theme_location' => 'social',
       						'depth'          => 1,
       						'link_before'    => '<span class="screen-reader-text">',
       						'link_after'     => '</span>',
       					) );
       				?>
       			</nav><!-- .social-navigation -->
       		<?php endif; ?>
   
       		<?php if ( is_active_sidebar( 'sidebar' ) ) : ?>
       			<div id="widget-area" class="widget-area" role="complementary">
       				<?php dynamic_sidebar( 'sidebar' ); ?>
       			</div><!-- .widget-area -->
       		<?php endif; ?>
   
       	</div><!-- .secondary -->
   
       <?php endif; ?>
       ```
   
 *  Thread Starter [ariapictures](https://wordpress.org/support/users/ariapictures/)
 * (@ariapictures)
 * [11 years ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/theme-development-stuck-on-sidebar/#post-6049480)
 * UPDATE: not sure what I did, but I keep playing.
 * On the appearance > widgets screen i pulled down the screen options and it said‘
   enable accessibility mode’ so i did, and the widgets screen changed, but I did
   some editing and now the widgets show up, after I found the css that had display:
   none; and commented it out.
 * what I want to know is why it wasn’t enabled already?
 * I do notice that all themes have the same screen options for the widgets, now
   is shows ‘disable accessibility mode’ on all the other themes I am comparing.
 * never read that anywhere in all the documents and tutorials.

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

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## Tags

 * [development](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/development/)
 * [scratch](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/scratch/)
 * [sidebar](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/sidebar/)

 * In: [Hacks](https://wordpress.org/support/forum/plugins-and-hacks/hacks/)
 * 2 replies
 * 1 participant
 * Last reply from: [ariapictures](https://wordpress.org/support/users/ariapictures/)
 * Last activity: [11 years ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/theme-development-stuck-on-sidebar/#post-6049480)
 * Status: not resolved

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