Plugin Review – Woosidebars

Plugin Review – Woosidebars

https://wordpress.org/plugins/woosidebars/

Version Tested: V 1.4.3

Woosidebars is a plugin that allows you to replace sidebars with those of your own creation on specific pages throughout your WordPress site, technically you could have a different sidebar per page.

Installation is a case of installing and activating the plugin, once you have done that you get a new page – Dashboard>>Appearance>>Widget Areas. It is here where you will setup, view and configure your new widget areas, which will appear within the Dashboard>>Appearance>>Widgets page.

ON testing I found I had issues using this for a BuddyPress installations; whilst I was able to configure new sidebars for my site homepage for example, I was unable to configure sidebars for my BuddyPress static pages such as Activity, Groups etc, even though these pages were listed by the plugin, selecting them and inserting new widgets did not display them on those pages.

Similarly although there are options to select forum pages for new widget areas when I tried this in my simple test setup again this seemed to fail with no new widget area being displayed on any BuddyPress group forum page.

I found using the plugin itself very simple compared to other sidebar plugins that I have tried, if only the basic BuddyPress pages could be supported though, given this lack of support for BuddyPress then I will have to give this plugin 6 out of 10.

My Star Rating

Other Peoples Reviews

dalibor (daliborpuljiz)

Not working with PHP 8

Hasn't been updated in a year.

November 2, 2021

emiliprades

Han dejado de actualizar y ha roto mi web

Hace casi dos años que no lo actualizan y con la última versión de Wordpress 5.8 ha roto mi web. [...]Los artículos han empezado a perder el formato, tamaño de texto, colores, bordes, celdas, etc... y me he vuelto loco durante dos semanas hasta encontrar el problema. Además, si accedo al menú de widgets de worpress empiezan a saltar lineas de error, una por cada widget que tengo en cada barra lateral con este plugin. Y antes de que me de tiempo ha hacer nada, página en blanco con error 404 y la web inservible durante un buen rato. Solución a todos los problemas, desactivar todas las opciones de este plugin, desactivar el plugin y borrarlo y limpiar la base de datos del CPanel. Conclusión: Instalar plugins gratuitos es un error, tarde o temprano los abandonan. Read more »

October 2, 2021

itguysconsulting

PHP 8.0 Error

There is a problem with line 170 in class-woo-sidebars.php which can be fixed by changing the %a to a %s. From this: 'search_items' => sprintf( __( 'Search %a', 'woosidebars' ), $plural ), To this: 'search_items' => sprintf( __( 'Search %s', 'woosidebars' ), $plural ),

September 19, 2021

igvsupport

Helps a lot with Oxygen Builder

If you have trouble with widgets showing or being compatible in Oxygen Builder, this plugin can do wonders. Especially true regarding WooCommerce plugins and how they utilize Widgets a lot. Needs to be regularly updated though.

August 18, 2021

shadyshane

Does not support PHP 8.0

The plugin is not being updated anymore. Latest PHP release 8.0 throws a FATAL ERROR.

March 16, 2021

penseelibre

the best plugin for woo widgets

I've tried others: none are as suitable for woo commerce

October 6, 2019

basebond (base007)

Dead

Sad that this is not being support anymore.

July 20, 2019

Cees Rijken (connectcase)

Not good

The idea is very good, but the execution is flawed... [...] I tried to add a custom sidebar on my WooCommerce shop page but noticed that there was now also a sidebar in the products overview in the WP admin!! When I tried to de-activate and update it, it does not allow me to do that. I just stays checked! Read more »

November 26, 2018

dilusionz

Don't waste your time - doesn't work at all

You can add a new widget area but nothing saves in it, stays empty all the time. Its very buggy now and needs updating - otherwise don't bother.

November 24, 2018

Zen777 (markbanf)

Doesn't work properly

Plugin worked initially but when I updated the regular sidebar for all pages, the individual pages stopped working completely. Had to uninstall.

November 15, 2018