In this article, you’ll see how to create a sidebar template to display CommunityAlly group options to make navigating groups much easier.
Please note this is the simplest way to add a sidebar, but not the only way. Beaver Builder is a 3rd party tool. For additional questions about creating Beaver Builder Theme templates please reach out to Beaver Builder for support.
ARTICLE CONTENT:
Why add a sidebar?
One of our most requested features was a way to make navigating CommunityAlly Groups easier when viewing group-related pages. This option offers quick links to several key group pages.
What’s needed for this article?
The Beaver Builder Theme for WordPress. The steps in this article are possible when using the Beaver Builder Theme. They do not apply to users that want to achieve a sidebar using the Beaver Builder page builder plugin or the Beaver Themer plugin.
Beaver Builder is a 3rd party tool. We recommend reaching out to Beaver Builder for support if you’d like to explore other options for creating a theme template.
Step 1: Create a new WordPress menu for your Community Groups.
- Go to Appearance > Menus
- Click the create a new menu link.
- Name the menu something easy to associate with your CommunityAlly Groups
- Open the CommunityAlly Profile dropdown menu.
- Select any/all items with a checkmark that you would like to add. Click the Add to Menu button.
Don’t forget to save your menu!
Step 2: Create a primary sidebar widget.
- Go to Appearance > Widgets
- Open the dropdown by the Primary Sidebar widget area. The Gutenberg version is shown below. This may look different depending on what version of WordPress you are using.
- Add a Navigation Menu to this sidebar.
- Add a title to the widget (your members will see this.) Then use the Select Menu section to choose the menu you created to use with CommunityAlly groups.
Don’t forget to save your changes!
Step 3: Add your Sidebar Template to your Community Group(s).
Go to AccessAlly > Offerings and select the offering that holds a CommunityAlly group. In the content tab, use the brush icon to open your group page.
In the menu look for the SETTINGS tab. Scroll to the Theme Template section and choose Sidebar from the dropdown menu.
Save your changes.
Your new CommunityAlly Group sidebar can be added to any/all of your groups by repeating this under SETTINGS for any group that you would like to have this sidebar.
A quick note about which tabs in groups will display your new sidebar. The sidebar will appear on the Feed tab, Members tab, and Profile Tab. The sidebar does not display on tabs for Notifications, Favorites, or Groups. On pages where the sidebar does not display there are links on these pages users can click on to get back to the exact group easily.
Article FAQs
If you would prefer to add direct feed links for groups the member is a part of you can replace Step 1 in this article with conditional links to each group feed. This requires HTML coding, but works with any WordPress theme or page builder.
You can use conditionals with direct links to each community feed to create a static sidebar showing links to only the community groups a member has access to.
Here’s an example – only members tagged with Wonderful Challenge Base Access see the community link.
Widget setup – HTML block
HTML widget setup – go to the AccessAlly shortcode generator (in the WordPress bar at top of page.) Copy to clipboard and paste code into your widget. Here’s an example of the code you see with this option.
[accessally_has_any_tag tag_id='1' comment='Wonderful Challenge Base Access'][/accessally_has_any_tag]
Final result – [accessally_has_any_tag tag_id='1' comment='Wonderful Challenge Base Access']<p><a href="https://kim2.accessally.com/groups/wonderful-challenge-community/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Wonderful Challenge Group</a></p>[/accessally_has_any_tag]
