Comment on WP Autoblog Plugin Support by SEO Dave.

Massive Passive Profits Autoblog Plugin Thanks for the feedback on the widgets/sidebar error.

I have an idea to test for the next person with this error. As you’ve not got the error now, you shouldn’t bother trying it (no way to know if it worked).

The sidebar menu widgets are generated in two ways.

When you install WordPress and a theme (almost any theme that’s widgetized, some old ones aren’t) the sidebar.php file holds some default widgets (Talian also has left_sidebar.php as well for the left sidebar).

The number and type of widgets are set by the theme developer, I’ve added the basic widgets like categories, links etc…

These default widgets are hard coded into the sidebar template file(s) so when the theme is first installed the site has some menu items on the sidebar.

Doesn’t have to work this way, you could start with blank sidebars and the user would use the WordPress widget menu to add the widgets they want, but you can imagine to the average WordPress user they would believe the sites broken if they found no sidebars after installing a new theme :-)

When you go to the widgets menu under your Dashboard you’ll see the sidebar(s) are empty. When you drag and drop a widget into say sidebar 1, this one widget overrides the default hard coded widgets in the sidebar template file (it’s like they never existed to WordPress) and now that sidebar will only use widgets added via the widgets menu. The idea is users get to build a custom menu order rather than being limited by what the theme developer added to the sidebar template file(s).

What I want to try is removing the hard coded widgets from the sidebar template files to see if this removes the widgets error. I can’t test this as I haven’t been able to replicate the error (I’ve tested the changes below won’t break the theme).

You can make these changes either via the built in WordPress theme editor or offline in a text editor (must be a text editor like Notepad as programs like MS Word can break php code) and upload the edited files.

Note: make a backup of sidebar.php and left_sidebar.php in case things go wrong and you need to revert to the original files.

Offline load sidebar.php in a text editor and delete everything between these two lines of code:

<?php if ( !function_exists('dynamic_sidebar')
|| !dynamic_sidebar(2) ) : ?>

Delete all code here, but leave the line of code above and below.

<?php endif; ?><

Save the file and upload to the Talian theme folder using an FTP program like Filezilla.

/wp-content/themes/talian-adsense-clickbank-seo-05/

Repeat with the similar code in the left_sidebar.php file:

<?php if ( !function_exists('dynamic_sidebar')
|| !dynamic_sidebar(1) ) : ?>

Delete all code here, but leave the line of code above and below.

<?php endif; ?>

Save the file and upload to the Talian theme folder using an FTP program like Filezilla.

/wp-content/themes/talian-adsense-clickbank-seo-05/

If you've not used the WordPress widgets menu to add widgets you'll find your sidebars are now blank (everything else will work as before).

Do you still get the widget error?

Even if it doesn't work you can leave the files like this, go to the Widget menu and add the widgets you want on your two sidebars (you should add your own widgets anyway, gives you more control over what your site looks like).

To make these changes via the built in WordPress template editor, find the two files and remove the same code.

If it works I can add the edited sidebar.php and left_sidebar.php files with the theme for those with this error.

David