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Lets make it simple, lets say I want to have a per sidebar setting that will control if the sidebar has a white or gray background.

Obviously I can add some CSS to do that, but I want to let the user decide about it, without forcing him to learn CSS.

It is possible to have a "parallel" configuration screen for the sidebars themselves, but this make a bad UX as it basically forces the user to have two windows open to have all the context while configuring sidebars and widgets.

A better approach will be to have some section below the sidebar description, but there doesn't seem to be any simple way to do that.

Have I missed anything? I am open to other UX ideas as well.

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I would probably build this as a theme_mod in the customizer. You could add a setting for each widget area in the Colors panel.

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  • Yes, but this is still two different UX paths for widgets and sidebars, unless there is some possible hack with the customizer....
    – Mark Kaplun
    Commented Mar 23, 2016 at 15:04
  • I don't think so. All theme_mods MUST be in the customizer per the Theme Review team, pushing it to be the norm. When I change Colors on a site, I think all dynamic settings for this should be in the Colors pane. Having a color option where widgets are placed seems out of place to me.
    – Nathan Powell
    Commented Mar 23, 2016 at 15:21
  • hmmm, you are taking colors too literally ;) even if there is a color panel it is inferior UX, but what if the feature I want to implement is a "semi fixed" sidebar (get fixed location only after some scrolling) where do I put it then?
    – Mark Kaplun
    Commented Mar 23, 2016 at 15:35
  • How about adding a setting icon on your widget, detect if it's in customizer mode, then show the button near the widget preview for changing the color. If it's in normal page widget disable all the output for the switcher
    – nonsensecreativity
    Commented Mar 23, 2016 at 15:45
  • Add a new Customizer panel for "Structure" settings or just "Sidebar Settings". I think context is the most important thing really. In customizer, the Widgets pane is just that, a place to organize widgets and configue widgets. But that is just my opinion.
    – Nathan Powell
    Commented Mar 23, 2016 at 16:21

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