Show different sidebar on taxonomy pages when a default is set

Question

My theme holds below code in sidebar.php. I want to now make sure I can show a different sidebar when someone is viewing a custom taxonomy.

//Default sidebar
$selected_sidebar_replacement = 'Sidebar Widgets';

//If is page or single
if(is_singular()){
global $wp_query;
$post = $wp_query->get_queried_object();
$selected_sidebar_replacement = get_post_meta($post->ID, 'sbg_selected_sidebar_replacement', true);

//If default selected
if($selected_sidebar_replacement == '0' || $selected_sidebar_replacement == ''){
$selected_sidebar_replacement = 'Sidebar Widgets';
                    }

// Reset the global $the_post
wp_reset_query();

                }

I've already tried the below (above //If default selected), where "product-brand" is the slug of the custom taxonomy and where "Gear" is an existing (and working on other pages) sidebar, but it didn't work. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

if(is_tax( 'product-brand' )){ $selected_sidebar_replacement = 'Gear'; }

Full sidebar.php code on pastebin: http://pastebin.com/CLD9DrUz

Answer 1

Why don't you simply create a new sidebar... It will be clearer for you and will lighten your sidebar.php.

Create a file in your theme folder : sidebar-thenameyouwant.php put your sidebar code there like this ex :

    <div id="secondary">
        <?php dynamic_sidebar( 'sidebar-xyz' ); ?>
    </div><!-- #secondary .widget-area -->

in your themes function.php... add :

    register_sidebar( array(
    'name' => 'Custom posts sb',
    'id' => 'sidebar-xyz',
    'description' => 'blablabla',
    'before_widget' => '<aside id="%1$s" class="widget %2$s">',
    'after_widget' => "</aside>",
    'before_title' => '<h3 class="widget-title">',
    'after_title' => '</h3>',
) );

then in your custom taxonomy page you call the right sidebar

<?php get_sidebar('thenameyouwant');    ?>

it will automatically load the code from your sidebar-thenameyouwant.php

Of course, the new sidebar will be in your admin Appearance > Widgets... You can slide widgets into it or just edit the new sidebar file directly. If you want to load widgets you have to have the dynamic_sidebar php call like above...

hope this helps.

Answer 2

why not just do that ...

if (get_post_type( $post->ID ) == 'xyz' && is_single() ) {
// your code for this sb 
}
else {
// for the other pages/posts
}

Answer 3

I managed to get something working where I just called the taxonomy (unspecific) and compared it to the current taxonomy I was viewing. This meant making too many iterations though, so I removed it and basically added a single conditional to check against the custom_post_type.