Dynamic Sidebars On Multiple Subpages

Question

I am building a site in WordPress. It has multiple subpages, many of which require different sidebars. So, I have a widgetized theme and I have also created a few sidebar widgets.

I have written a conditional statement to show different sidebars on different pages. However, one widgetized sidebar displays on almost all pages despite the conditional statement.

The sidebar that is appearing on the desired page can be seen here: http://www.africanhealthleadership.org/about/approach/

The subpage that should have a different sidebar is under Knowledge Resources>Research

The code is as follows. I am a total PHP spazz, so I likely did something silly. I have tried single quotes around dynamic_sidebar(2) but that did not work.

Thank you for any help.

<?php 
     if ( is_subpage('approach') ) {
     if (!function_exists ( dynamic_sidebar(1) ) ) ; 
}
    elseif ( is_subpage('research')) {
    if (!function_exists( dynamic_sidebar(2)) || !dynamic_sidebar( "Sidebar2") );
    }
?>

Answer 1

More easy & elegant (higher maintainability):

<?php 
// Your sidebar should have the wp_meta action hook
wp_meta();

// in ex. your functions.php
function my_sidebar_content() {
    // "About" Page
    if ( is_page('about') ) {
        // If some widget is added via Admin > Design > Widgets
        if ( is_active_sidebar( 'widgets-sidebar-default' ) ) {
            // Display Widgets
            dynamic_sidebar( 'widgets-sidebar-default' );
        }
        // Default Content before Widgets were added
        else {
            _e('default static content', TEXTDOMAIN);
        }
    }
    // "Links" Page
    elseif ( is_page('links') ) {
        if ( is_active_sidebar( 'widgets-sidebar-links' ) ) {
            dynamic_sidebar( 'widgets-sidebar-links' );
        }
        else {
            _e('default static content', TEXTDOMAIN);
        }
    }
}
add_action( 'wp_meta', 'my_sidebar_content', 10 );

# ===================================================
// OR:
wp_meta();

// functions.php
function load_my_sidebars() {
    // "About" Page
    if ( is_page('about') ) {
        get_template_part( 'sidebar_content', 'default' );
    }
    // "Links" Page
    elseif ( is_page('links') ) {
        get_template_part( 'sidebar_content', 'links' );
    }
}
add_action( 'wp_meta', 'load_my_sidebars', 10 );

// in sidebar_content-default.php
    // If some widget is added via Admin > Design > Widgets
    // You can add any static content right here before the widgets
    if ( is_active_sidebar( 'widgets-sidebar-default' ) ) {
        // Display Widgets
        dynamic_sidebar( 'widgets-sidebar-default' );
    }
    // Default Content before Widgets were added
    else {
        _e('default static content', TEXTDOMAIN);
    }
    // You can add any static content right here after the widgets

// in sidebar_content-links.php
    if ( is_active_sidebar( 'widgets-sidebar-links' ) ) {
        dynamic_sidebar( 'widgets-sidebar-links' );
    }
    else {
        _e('default static content', TEXTDOMAIN);
    }
?>

Answer 2

I don't know why anybody checks whether dynamic_sidebar exists. It's been around for 9 major releases now. I really hope you're not developing for 2.1 or lower. Try this:

if( is_page('approach') )
  dynamic_sidebar(1);
elseif( is_page('research') )
  dynamic_sidebar(2);

If you know the specific page you want to use, don't bother with that subpage junk. Besides, that function only checks if you're on a subpage in general, but it won't tell you if you're on a specific subpage.

Answer 3

You could just use "Widget Logic" extension so you don't need write support for custom widgets in sidebar into the actual template.