The Case of the Mysterious Sidebar Widgets in WordPress

• WordPress is a very versatile software developed as an open source solution. It is available as a free download and thus any one can install and use it to make their respective website. There are many different kinds of websites possible with WordPress.

• From the simple Blog, to a fully featured content management system to a state of the art ecommerce website, there are no limits as to what you can create with WordPress. You may be surprised to learn that many magazines and tabloids use WordPress to make their websites. And that’s not all, some of the popular social networking websites have also been made using WordPress.

• Thus many users have faced this issue that even when there are no widgets assigned to the sidebars in the admin area, several of them are still displayed. This is highly mysterious and baffling to some users who end up getting confused as to how to remove them. This article is to help you out when you come across such a situation in WordPress.

You need to follow the steps mentioned here in order to set things right.

• First connect to your WordPress website web server using FTP .

• Now navigate to your themes directory and download the file sidebar.php.

• This file will contain the code as displayed below:

• <?php if ( ! dynamic_sidebar( ‘Sidebar’ )) : ?>

• <div id=”sidebar-search” class=”widget”>

• <h3>Search</h3>

• <?php get_search_form(); ?> <!– outputs the default WordPress search form→

• </div>

• <div id=”sidebar-nav” class=”widget menu”>

• <h3>Navigation</h3>

• <?php wp_nav_menu( array(‘menu’ => ‘Sidebar Menu’ )); ?> <!– editable within the WordPress backend →

• </div>

• <div id=”sidebar-archives” class=”widget”>

• <h3>Archives</h3>

• <ul>

• <?php wp_get_archives( ‘type=monthly’ ); ?>

• </ul>

• </div>

• <div id=”sidebar-meta” class=”widget”>

• <h3>Meta</h3>

• <ul>

• <?php wp_register(); ?>

• <li><?php wp_loginout(); ?></li>

• <?php wp_meta(); ?>

• </ul>

• </div>

• <?php endif; ?>

• The above file contains a lot of code. To start with there is a condition to display the default widgets Search, Navigation, Archive, Meta if no widgets are assigned to the widget area in the admin panel.

• You will then notice the code for each widget like for the search widget, the navigation widget , the archive widget and the meta widget.

• What you need to do is to comment out this code or remove it all together.

• Doing this will solve the case of the mysterious appearance of the widgets.

• This is a common problem and does confuse many people. Although many of the WordPress sites are developed by WordPress Web Developers who are aware of these issues. It is quite common for website owners to have a customised layout and not go with readymade templates.

• The reason behind this is quite simple. A customised layout with unique functionality has the ability of standing out from the rest. Besides which WordPress templates are pretty generic and thus it may be hard to find what you are looking for.

• Alakmalak is one such WordPress Web Development company in India.

• How To Widgetize Wordpress Sidebar
• The Case Of The Mysterious Sidebar Widgets In WordPress
• wordpress web developer