Use sidebars with page templates
Ashford has many page templates. Each template has 1-3 sidebars. These sidebars can be loaded with one or more widgets. This allows you to create customized pages for your site.
The default page template uses the standard_sidebar. When adding or editing a page, find the Advanced Options subheading and click on “Page template”. You can choose a page template. Each page template uses sidebars differently. NOTE: when you click save on a widget, your changes will appear immediately.
Add custom sidebars
On Theme Options, you can add custom sidebars that can be selected via the Pro Settings Panel. The custom sidebar ONLY applies to the right or left region.
- Dashboard > Appearance > Theme Options
- Find “Add custom sidebars”
- Enter comma delimited list
landing-page,front-page,product-page
This will add three new sidebars to the select sidebar option on the Pro Settings Panel for all page templates.
Add a widget to a sidebar
You can add WordPress Widgets from the list of Widget options to any of the Ashford sidebars. You can move the Widget around on the sidebar, changing the order and placement.
To edit or change the options for a specific Widget, click the icon on the right side of the Widget to access the Widget’s Options. When you made the changes and selected the options, click okay or click on the browser away from the option popup.
The content WordPress Widgets provides range from the basic ability to add “static” text, images, and links to your WordPress blog sidebar, to adding automatically generated link lists, images, videos, counters, and much more.
Build your footer sidebar
The footer sidebar appears on all pages (unless you use theme options to turn it off).
Ashford allows you to customize your footer sidebar with widgets. We recommend that you plan to use three widgets. This will build a footer in three nice columns and is the only sidebar to display on every page (see this site as an example).
- Select the Dashboard → Design → Widgets subpanel
- Find the Current Widgets in the right column
- Select the “footer” sidebar and click the show button
- Add and remove widgets
- Click on edit to change a widget’s controls and click “done”
- When finished click save changes
View your site and all the pages using that sidebar to verify your modifications.