Formerly “Discourse Category Sidebars” — the name of this theme component has been updated to Topic List Sidebars now that it supports both categories and tags.
Summary
Topic List Sidebars takes a topic and applies it as a sidebar for a category or tag’s topic list.
This theme component takes a topic and applies it as a sidebar for a category or tag’s topic list. These sidebars are only visible when the browser is 767px or wider (most tablets and monitors).
Choose a topic and display its content as a sidebar for a category or tag.
Set a sidebar to be displayed on the /latest, /new, /unread, and /top pages by using all as the category name in your settings.
Choose for the sidebars to appear on the left or the right of the topic list.
By default a category’s sidebar will also display for all its subcategories unless a subcategory has its own sidebar defined (you can disable this by unchecking the inherit parent sidebar setting).
How do I configure it?
Choose your categories and tags, and add the id of the topic (e.g. example.com/t/example-topic/57) that you would like to use to populate the sidebar’s content
I recommend creating sidebar topics in their respective categories/tags, closing the topic so there are no replies, and unlisting it (so it doesn’t appear in the topic list).
Note that you cannot use a topic in a private category as a sidebar in a public category (you can technically, but users without access to that private topic will just see a empty sidebar!).
Settings
Name
Description
sidebars
Add and remove sidebars
sidebar side
Choose from Left or Right
inherit parent sidebar
If checked subcategories will inherit their parent category’s sidebar (unless the subcategory has its own sidebar assigned).
When unchecked subcategories will only display a sidebar if one is specified.
stick on scroll
When checked sidebar has a sticky position on scroll
Developer Notes
Each category sidebar is wrapped with a class that contains the category slug, so for the staff category that would be .category-sidebar-staff. You can use these classes to style the individual sidebars.
The body tag on pages with sidebars also has a class added so you can use body.custom-sidebar to apply styles on all pages that have a sidebar.
Credits
Special thanks to @xrav3nz for laying the groundwork to make this component possible!
Hosted by us? Theme components are available to use on our Standard, Business, and Enterprise plans.
Since I am using the header submenu plugin, A part of the text is covered by my header bar. It would be great if it was possible to add extra margin/offset or whatever it’s called for the case when additional elements before the header are covering the sidebar’s content.
Also: is there any way to keep the category drop down menu above the sticky sidebar’s content? that would make it easy for users to jump between categories quickly.
altogether I think the category sidebar is a great plugin and has huge potential to add useful information to the forum structure!
I have a few questions/suggestions that I hope you can help with…
1 - Is it possible to make this so that when a user browses the forum, going from page to page the sidebar always checks for the latest version of the post that it contains? At the moment I think the content of the sidebar only updates on a page refresh? Unfortunately content that rarely changes begins to appear stale to users (particularly active users) and so I’d like to update the topic associated with the sidebar frequently if I can. (Similarly, if the ID of the topic in the options for that page is changed, it would pick it up on the next page-view). I’m quite happy for the additional load per page/view but if you’re worried others may not be perhaps you could add a “cache post contents” option which would make it work like it does now.
2 - Is it possible to associate/pick up content from more than one topic per sidebar please? So for example on the Latests page you might want the content from topics 33,55 (and in that order). This would be great to allow different content per page while also include common info/links that you might want to appear at the bottom of every sidebar.
3 - Is it possible to expand the plugin so it can be used site-wide please? At the moment I think it can only be used on certain pages? Ideally I’d like to use this across the whole forum on all main sections/pages. (Perhaps your tags sidebar plugin could be used in conjunction with this for finer control - eg for individual tags and/or Topics - I think both combined could become a very power sidebar package!!)
4 - Is it possible to add a sidebar width option as well as a configurable cut-off/display-none point please? This isn’t a biggie as it can be done via css changes but think it would be nice to have in the options.
5 - Last but not least… could you get polls to work please? I think allowing users to vote in polls right out of the sidebar would be awesome!!! I find dynamic content like this in sidebars can make them interesting to users, and so less likely that they’ll automatically ignore them.
I think with all the above this plugin would make a very good candidate to be included in core or an official DC plugin - imo it could help people put an individual stamp on their forums and I’m sure people would use them in fun and interesting ways!
¿Es esto posible para los grupos también? Tener una barra lateral para los grupos sería genial para dar información sobre el grupo.
¿Alguien puede indicarme cómo obtener los parámetros del grupo (para que el componente sepa que estás dentro de un grupo) para poder intentarlo y crear un PR yo mismo?
Podría ser un poco atrevido pedirlo, ya que se llama barra lateral, pero: ¿sería posible añadir una opción para colocar el contenido no al lado, sino siempre encima de la lista de temas?
Usamos Discourse como una intranet social y, para algunas categorías, tenemos la necesidad de un área fácil de mantener para enlaces, listas de personas, etc. - este mecanismo sería genial para eso, pero simplemente hay muy poco espacio en la barra lateral.
Los trucos de CSS también son bienvenidos.
Ya he probado los banners de categoría, pero se limitan al primer párrafo, por lo que no es una opción.
Me preguntaba si esto se podría modificar o tener una opción para moverlo de una barra lateral a una barra superior debajo del encabezado del sitio o tal vez justo debajo del logotipo de una categoría.
¿O si podría recibir orientación sobre cómo agregar CSS personalizado para moverlo y también hacer que se muestre para dispositivos móviles como una barra superior pegajosa? ¿Anclado justo debajo de la barra principal del sitio?
Puede que esté entendiendo mal cómo funciona este componente temático, pero ¿sería posible usarlo para mostrar la lista de temas a la izquierda, hacer clic en un tema de la lista y que las publicaciones se muestren a la derecha (y mantener la lista de temas fijada a la izquierda)? No necesito ver categorías. Se vería como Flarum.
No, lo que hace este componente es tomar el contenido de un tema y utilizarlo para poblar una barra lateral para la lista de temas de una categoría específica. No es visible al navegar a un tema.
La configuración existente debería migrar automáticamente al actualizar… a menos que tu “slug” sea diferente del nombre de la categoría, en cuyo caso deberás actualizar la configuración manualmente.
Por ejemplo, site-feedback migrará correctamente a Site Feedback, pero no hay un método para migrar “slugs” que no se alinean con los nombres (por ejemplo, tu “slug” para Site Feedback es hamburgers en lugar de site-feedback).
Probablemente cambiaré el nombre de este componente temático y descontinuaré las barras laterales de etiquetas para reflejar la nueva situación.
¿Migrarán automáticamente la configuración de las etiquetas?
Con la nueva configuración, ¿puede haber diferentes barras laterales para la misma etiqueta en diferentes categorías? ¿Cómo se resuelven los conflictos?
Formerly “Discourse Category Sidebars” — the name of this theme component has been updated to Topic List Sidebars now that it supports both categories and tags.
Special thanks to @xrav3nz for laying the groundwork to make this component possible!
