Which stack for hero header - navbar fixed top - left vertical menu or widget area sitewide - content center - sidebar right?

[kevinwenning]

I’ve been looking through the demo sites and still can’t figure out if this is available. I’ve also been playing with the different stacks on a dev site and having no luck. So maybe this isn’t available to have widget areas on both sides of content in any of the stacks? I have a good dev to do customizations if that’s my only option but I would think I could do this out of the box right? I’m on X child theme so maybe that’s where I’m hitting the limitation and I could do this if I switch to Pro?

The demo sites are nifty but it takes a half day of clicking through them all to see if they do what I need. Do you have a simple mapping of the content, menu, widget areas available per stack something like this example below of the layout I’m trying to build?

[ruenel]

Hello @kevinwenning,

Thanks for writing in!

All of the stacks only have Fullwidth, Sidebar Left | Content Right and Content Left | Sidebar Right layout. Regretfully we do not have left middle right content layout. Based on your screenshot, you can create the same layout by doing the following:

1.) For header banner photo or video, please look into the possibility of integrating a slider above your masthead. Please check out this documentation about slider and masthead settings here: https://theme.co/docs/append-sliders-to-your-header#how-to-add-the-slider-above-the-website-s-header

2.) The header menu or the navbar area can be set in X > Theme Options > Header

3.) Go to X > Theme Options > Layout and Design and set the Content Layout to “Sidebar Left | Content Right” since you want a sitewide vertical menu for popular or featured links.

4.) When you create your pages and post, please use the default page template. Edit your pages/posts in Cornerstone and insert a section and row with a 2/3 + 1/3 column layout. The 2/3 column will be dedicated to your page/post contents. You can always nest rows and columns for this part if necessary. The 1/3 part will be dedicated as your 2nd sidebar area by which you can utilize the Widget Area element in Cornerstone. If you want to create something fancy for this sidebar area, you can use the Global Block as a replacement for the widget area.

Hope this helps. Kindly let us know how it goes.

[kevinwenning]

Thanks for the detailed response. That’s what I was afraid I’d hear. It’s a hack that doesn’t really accomplish the user experience I’m after. Using part of the layout per page or post to add a block is exactly what I’m trying to avoid. I know it’s not that difficult to do if I’ve saved a global block that I just add there as a template every time I add new content but…I have to add it every time I create new content. Also, that makes it very difficult if I want to do anything interesting with the actual content on the page or post. Ugh, just ugh. This may be fine for mostly static sites. This workaround is not a good option for people who actually use their website to create and publish a lot of new content regularly.

Looks like expensive custom development it is then, or maybe time to find a new theme and sitebuilder which sounds even less fun.

[kevinwenning]

I see this request on the forums kind of frequently. Is this layout option on the development roadmap at least or has a product manager decided that no reasonable person building and maintaining a modern website should ever want this?

[kevinwenning]

To follow up on my other question - is there a visual mapping of content, menu and widget areas available per stack somewhere so I can quickly decide which stack has the options I need when building out a site?

[rad]

Hi @kevinwenning,

The stack is mostly for design only, it’s not about contents, menu, or widgets. Some features are specific to stack like Ethos’s slider and carousel, and or Integrity’s light and dark design. You can check more information here https://theme.co/docs/stacks

And to answer your previous question, all contents added by any builder are static since it sit on top of post content where usually, the content is static which requires re-editing when you need something. Again, this happens to all builders. BUT, you can also use Dynamic Content feature to make it a bit dynamic, like same global block, but contains dynamic content https://theme.co/docs/work-with-dynamic-content

The builder is created for this function, and it’s a content builder, not a template builder. It’s the same with Visual Composer and Elementor. As of now, there is no news about the template builder, and it’s also a good feature to allow customization on templates that still adhere to Wordpress standard, it’s a theme framework.

Thanks!

[kevinwenning]

Eh; kind of a lazy response don’t you think? Dynamic content can be created in widget areas or in global blocks - edit once / update everywhere right? The point of my ask is to have a content left and content right area both containing dynamic content that will automagically display sitewide - and that I don’t have to manually add to every post and page where I want them to display. The only way to accomplish that is to allow a widget area on the left, content center (with full cornerstone capabilities), widget area on the right, and also a widget area in the masthead space to deploy a mega menu.

This is a solved problem but still not available on X theme https://www.cssigniter.com/creating-simple-wordpress-blogging-layout-css-grid-flexbox/

[rad]

Hi @kevinwenning,

Sorry for the confusion, but may I know which one from my response? I have provided the URL about dynamic content and how it can be used. And my response will be the same as how it’s written from the docs since it’s how it works.

I only provided Dynamic Content as another option for dynamic display of content that can be displayed anywhere, widget, global block, templates, and so on. But that is still depends on you on how you’ll implement it, like if it’s in the template then you still need template customization. If that’s not what you’re looking for then you may skip Dynamic Content for now. You can say that any changes to data like a post title, user, it will update everywhere and wherever the dynamic content is placed.

And to answer your initial question based on the layout you provided, that’s not currently possible without template customization. And yes, you can use the fix provided on your link https://www.cssigniter.com/creating-simple-wordpress-blogging-layout-css-grid-flexbox/. But that also means you’ll have to apply that to your custom templates. I’m not saying it’s not possible, it needs custom development which we can’t provide here in the forum.

And as additional information, our builder already uses flexbox (https://theme.co/docs/use-flex-layout) similar from your provided URL. The flexbox is not the issue, it’s how and where you’ll implement it. Since it’s implemented in the builder, then flexbox is only limited to content building. If you wish to apply it on PHP (template level), then you’ll have to custom develop it.

Thanks!

[kevinwenning]

Yes, I’m aware of what dynamic content is but that doesn’t provide the UX I’m after in this case - either for me as the site creator or for my site visitors.

Yes, I’ll need a PHP level custom solution; and yes, I know I’ll need to pay someone outside of this forum to do that for me.

What I’d really like to know from this exchange is… will a left - middle - right content layout likely ever be coming to X theme in any stack or product offering…before I go spend $$$ on my own theme customization?

[christopher]

Hi @kevinwenning,

The bottom line is that we do not have such a layout feature that you want and my colleagues did their best to give you workarounds and yes, hacks to achieve what you want without going for the customization route. I’m sure you will understand that the intension is to serve you as our valued customer.

We certainly will be able to add a feature request for this, but there is no such a layout in the roadmap and you should not rely on that assumption for your project.

Thank you for your understanding.

[kevinwenning]

Much appreciated. Thank you.