Sidebars/Widget Areas are containers to hold widgets. They are usually used to display information other than the main content of a web page or to add widgets into mega and side menus.
Note that there is no difference between a sidebar and a widget area. Sometimes, when talking about pages for example, we call it sidebar, but other times, like when talking about mega menus, we call it a widget area. The Jupiter theme provides 17 default sidebar areas. Each sidebar area belongs to a specific page.
In this article, we’ll explain the process of adding a sidebar to a page and selecting a widget area for the mega menu. It does not matter if the page is a blog post or portfolio item, the process is the same.
Adding a Sidebar into Posts
This setting is available in Posts, Pages, News and Portfolios in the Jupiter Page Options box. This setting adds the default sidebar area.
To add a sidebar:
Adding a Sidebar into Pages
There are three ways to add a sidebar into a page from the layout setting, in the page section shortcode and in the widgetized sidebar shortcode.
Layout Settings
This setting is available in Posts, Pages, News and Portfolios in the Jupiter Page Options box. This setting adds the default sidebar area.
To add a sidebar:
Adding a Sidebar via Shortcodes
Page Section Shortcode
The page section shortcode provides the Select Section Layout and Sidebar settings which allow you to add a sidebar inside a page section. It’s useful when the whole page is in full layout but you need to show a sidebar for just one of the page sections.
To add a sidebar inside a page section:
Widgetized Sidebar Shortcode
This shortcode allows you to choose a sidebar and display it inside a page section or row shortcode. In this example, we’ll explain the process for the row shortcode.
To add the widgetized sidebar shortcode inside the row shortcode:
Enabling a Sidebar for Archive Pages
In this section we’ll describe how to activate the sidebar for the portfolio archive pages. To do this, follow the steps below:
Enabling a Sidebar for the Search Page
Enabling the sidebar for the search page takes similar steps as for archive pages. They are the following:
Choosing a Widget Area for the Mega Menu
You can set a widget area as a column in your menu by selecting it from the Mega Menu Widget Area option for second level menu items.
To add a widget area to the mega menu, follow the steps described below: