Creating a New Custom Sidebar Widget Area

Custom Sidebars

Offers additional sidebars offer flexibility in designing your website's appearance. There are story templates that display widget areas (Non-Home Sidebar and Secondary Story Sidebar) beside a story. Those templates are the Sidebar and the Dual Sidebar templates. The site can have up to 9 additional sidebar areas. You can set a default sidebar for a template that displays a sidebar, but you can override that with one of the other 9 when adding/editing a story.

Creating a Custom Sidebar Area

1. Hover on Appearance and click SNO Design Options. 
2. Scroll and find the Story Page Templates.
3. Click Create a new Sidebar Widget Area.
4. Enter a unique name for the custom sidebar. The more specific the better. 
5. In the top right corner click Save All Design Changes. 

It will say the newly created widget area is empty. The next step is to add widgets to the new sidebar area.

Adding Widgets to the New Custom Sidebar Widget Areas

After creating a sidebar area, you will need to add widgets to display when that sidebar is used. To add widgets to the newly created sidebar area hover over Appearance and click widgets. You will see a list of available widgets on the left side of the widget control panel. On the right, you will see all of the widget areas. Find the widget area that you created. Add widgets to that area and customize the widgets as needed. Find a details explanation of the widget control panel here. 

Setting Custom Sidebar for Story

1. Open your story in edit mode. Make sure your story is set to use the Single Sidebar or Dual Sidebar Story Template on the right side of the story edit screen. 
2. In the Story Design settings on the right side, check the box for Customize Sidebar Content.
3. Use the dropdown menu(s) that appear to choose the Custom Sidebar you would like displayed on that story page.
4. Update your story.

To delete a custom header and/or custom footer: 

1. Go to SNO Design Options and click on the “Story Page Templates” tab on the left. 
2. Find the custom sidebar area you would like to delete in the second column.
3. Click on the orange “Delete” button. 
4. Click on “Save All Design Options.”

Adding custom sidebars allows you to customize the appearance of your website.