Inject PHP code into "sidebar-content" - code before my WooCommerce sidebar widget?

Question

I am trying to add some PHP code before my WooCommerce product page sidebar content and can't for the life of me find where to do that. I have tried editing sidebar.php, using the 'woocommerce_sidebar' hook but cannot make this work.

I simply want some PHP code to be visible above the widget content in <div class="sidebar-content"

Anybody have a simple solution for this? get_sidebar( 'shop' ); shop is being called, but how do I get some extra code in there?

Answer 1

WooCommerce allows you to replicate/replace it's template files by using the exact same file name and placing them in your theme directory using the same path structure they have. So in your theme directory, you add a folder called woocommerce and then within that, you place folder and template files the same way they have the organized.

So you would be creating the following: yourtheme/woocommerce/global/sidebar.php

You can read all about the whole process here: https://docs.woocommerce.com/document/template-structure/

Now, in that file, we have the following line: get_sidebar( 'shop' );

You'll want to replace that with: get_sidebar( 'shop-yourtheme' );

Not in the WooCommerce one, but in the duplicate you created in your theme.

Now, in your theme directory you want to create a new file called: sidebar-shop-yourtheme.php.

In your functions.php you have to register a new sidebar:

<?php if ( function_exists ('register_sidebar')) { 
    register_sidebar ('shop-yourtheme'); 
} ?>

And NOW we get to the point where you can add your own PHP code into the sidebar. Open your new sidebar-shop-yourtheme.php and add the following:

<?php
/**
* The shop sidebar widget area
* @package yourtheme
*/
if( !is_active_sidebar( 'shop-yourtheme' ) ) {
    return;
}
?>
<aside id="secondary" class="widget-area">
<?php
    // Start Adding your PHP here.
    dynamic_sidebar( 'shop-yourtheme' );
?>
</aside><!-- #secondary -->

As indicated in the code snippet, if you want your custom PHP appearing before the widgets start adding it above the dynamic_sidebar().

Answer 2

Tony offers a good solution, another would be to add the PHP Code Widget (https://wordpress.org/plugins/php-code-widget/) or PHP Everywhere plugin, which lets you add PHP to a text widget (https://wordpress.org/plugins/php-everywhere/).

Note that the first one I recommend is tested only up to WP 5.2.5 but seems to work okay in my 5.3 installation - ymmv.

Personally I prefer to do as Tony recommends and modify my template files, however if you're not working with a Child Theme then you need to be wary of Theme updates overwriting your mods.....a plugin will avoid that.