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Understanding CBOX Classic Widget Areas

Much of the the content displayed by CBOX Classic’s theme is controlled by widgets, and it is important to understand the various widget areas available and how to configure them.  When you go to Appearance>>Widgets in your dashboard, you’ll see the many choices the theme makes available.  Some names are confusing, and this article aims to clarify the association between widget areas, templates, and pages.

widgets2By default, the theme populates many of its widget areas with widgets that are typically displayed for a “Commons” site, but all the areas are customizable.  If you are a logged-in admin of your site, and if one of your sidebars has no widgets, the theme will display something similar to the image on the right.  In this example, the both the Sitewide Sidebar and the Activity Sidebar have no widgets.  Simply click the respective hyperlink to add some.

Homepage vs. Home

On the Homepage template, there are seven widgetized areas, not counting the three footer ones.  Configuration for the Homepage is documented in Homepage and Slider.  Each of the Homepage widgetized areas begin with the word “Homepage.”

The “Home Sidebar” widget area is not displayed on the Homepage template, but rather is the sidebar displayed on a page called “Home” that is not using the Homepage template.  (CBOX Classic sites can have both a Home page and a page that uses the Homepage template.  This site (commonsinabox.org) is one such example – the landing page is called “Home” and the CBOX Classic Showcase page employs the Homepage template.)

Sidebars can be configured to appear on the left or right.  Settings for sidebars can be found at Appearance>>CBOX Theme Options>>Options>>Sidebar.

Sitewide Sidebar

Widgets placed in the Sitewide Sidebar will be displayed on every sidebar on your site.  Their content will be displayed first, and if any other, page-specific sidebars areas are populated, those widgets will display afterwards.  So for example, if you want to display social icons on every sidebar on your site, you could put a social widget in the Sitewide Sidebar, and still customize the rest of  sidebar content to make each page unique.

Wiki Page

The wiki page has four widget areas: Wiki Top, Wiki Sidebar, Wiki Bottom Right, and Wiki Bottom Left.  It is common to use a simple Text Widget in the Wiki Top widget area to provide a brief introduction to your wiki and maybe include an image.  The wiki page content automatically displays below this area.  The other three areas are typically populated with widgets that begin with “(Wiki)” such as “(Wiki) Recent pages”, “(Wiki) Most Active Pages, or “(Wiki) Tag Cloud”.  But again, you can customize these areas as you see fit.

Blog Sidebar vs. Blogs Sidebar

Two widget areas have similar names and it is easy to get them confused.  The “Blog Sidebar” is the sidebar you’ll see when you use the Blog Template to display your posts.  The Blogs Sidebar is only relevant if you are running a multi-site network where members can create their own blogs.  BuddyPress automatically creates a page called “Blogs”, and this page’s sidebar is called “Blogs Sidebar.”

Groups Sidebar

If you have a “Groups” page on your site, this widget area will appear on the left or right, depending on how you configure your sidebar.  The body of the page will automatically contain a Group Directory.  You can customize the sidebar to your liking.

Some page sidebars are automatically populated with page-specific info. If this is the case, your widgets will appear below.
On some pages, the sidebar is automatically populated with page-specific info. Your widgets will appear below.

Forums Sidebar

If you have enabled Forums for a group, your group will have a forum page and this widget area will appear on the left or right, depending on how you configure your sidebar.  The body of the forums page contains the group’s description, a “New Topics” button, and a list of recent forum topics.  The sidebar will contain the group’s avatar, description, and toolbar (see image, right).  Content you place it the Forums Sidebar will appear below this.

Activity Sidebar

If you have an “Activity” page on your site, this widget area will appear on the left or right, depending on how you configure your sidebar. The body will automatically display your site’s activity stream, in descending order.  The sidebar will contain “Activity Filters,”  followed by whatever widgets you put in the Activity Sidebar.

Member Sidebar

If you have “Members” page on your site, this widget area will appear on the left or right, depending on how you configure your sidebar.  The body of this page will contain a directory of members which may be sorted by most active, newest to register, or alphabetic.  The Member Sidebar will contain whatever widgets you put there.

Footer Sidebars

At the bottom of your page there will always be three footer areas, Footer Left, Footer Center, and Footer Right.  These can be used as needed or left blank to not display.  These are site-wide widget areas and will appear on every page.

Community-Related Widgets

Widgets that begin with (bbPress) are supplied by bbPress, and are typically used on page sidebars to provide easy links to your community.  These widgets include (bbPress) Recent Topics, (bbPress) Recent Replies, (bbPress) Login Widget, (bbPress) Topic Views List, and (bbPress) Forum List.  Other community widgets include Recently Active Groups, Recently Active Member Avatars, Recent Networkwide blog posts, and Who’s Online Avatars.

 

 

CBOX Classic Guide

  • Overview
  • FAQ
  • Installation Guide
  • Plugins
    • Core Plugins
    • Optional Plugins
    • Expert Mode
  • Configuring CBOX Classic
    • CBOX Classic Theme
      • Dashboard
      • Homepage and Slider
      • Widget Areas
      • Sitewide Wiki
      • BuddyPress vs. bbPress Forums
      • Handling Registration
  • CBOX Classic Theme Developer Guide

CBOX has its roots in the CUNY Academic Commons, which in turn was made possible through funding from The City University of New York itself.

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The Commons In A Box was made possible through the generous support of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

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The CUNY Graduate Center has directly contributed to the CUNY Academic Commons, housing the project since its inception, and has contributed to CBOX through its GC Digital Initiatives.

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