Your pages and posts can have different sidebars. Sidebars are used to provide additional information, links, filters, etc.
Astra Theme Walkthrough Docs:
- Astra Theme Walkthrough
- This Is Your Customizer
- Style Your Website With Global Settings
- Build Your Header
- Find the Way With Breadcrumbs
- Set Up Your Blog
- Add Your Sidebars (currently reading)
- Build Your Footer
- Host Google Fonts Locally – Performance Is the Key
- See Other Customizer Options
- How To Build Quick Sites With Astra?
- Getting the Most Out of Astra Theme
The Sidebar option in your Customizer allows you to add sidebars across your entire website by setting Default Layout. Additionally, you can set different options for the following locations:
- Pages
- Blog Posts
- Archives (like Blog Archive for example)
Further, depending on what plugins you have activated, you will be able to set the sidebars for additional pages (e.g. WooCommerce or LearnDash pages).
There are four available sidebar options to be chosen:
For Blog Posts:
- No Sidebar – hide sidebar
- Left Sidebar – position sidebar on the left side of the content
- Right Sidebar – position sidebar on the right side of the content
- Choosing Default on any location will apply the Default Layout sidebar settings.
Sidebar Width sets the percentage of your container area reserved for the sidebar.
Once you have enabled your sidebar, you might want to add or remove some widgets, set a different order, or modify some settings.
You can do this in the Customizer by navigating to Customize > Widgets. Also, this can be accessed from your backend too by navigating to Dashboard > Appearance > Widgets. Here, you will be able to organize your sidebar and other widget areas.
Once you navigate to your Widget panel, you will notice all of your existing sidebars. Now, you need to expand your desired sidebar and add widgets to it. Further, each widget has its own settings which allow you to make additional adjustments.
Since WordPress version 5.8, you can use Blocks in your widget areas together with legacy widgets. The Astra theme is fully compatible with WordPress 5.8 and Block-Based Widget Editor since version 3.6.5.
Keep in mind that some of the Astra Header and Footer widget settings (font, color) were deprecated for better compatibility – if you need these options, you can find more details enabling them in this article.