Any ideas for content in our sidebar?

Stuart Wright

Well-known member
We have sidebars in every page. Every sidebar has an advert at the top and the share widget at the bottom.
What other content could we put into our sidebars? Suggestions invited.

Category (category_view) : https://www.avforums.com/categories/home-av-forums.495/
I wrote some text specifically for that category to explain what the topic is about. Some work to do to write that for all categories.

Forum (forum_view) : https://www.avforums.com/forums/lcd-led-lcd-tvs.155/

Thread (thread_view) : https://www.avforums.com/threads/so...-owners-thread.1858674/page-238#post-21463118
I have added @Daniel Hood's similar threads widget from his widget framework extension addon @ https://xenforo.com/community/resources/xmwidgets-bd-widget-framework-extension.2273/ which I think is an important addition.

But we have long columns of white in so many areas of the forums and I'm looking at useful, relevant, engaging, entertaining ways to fill them.

Any ideas?
Thanks.
 
I have twitter and rss feeds in mine - http://cliptheapex.com/
I find that it stimulates thread creating when people see an item of interest.
That's interesting, Paul. Do you have the same feeds throughout? Is it possible/have you considered selecting different feeds to make them more relevant to specific forums?
How do you create those (I have to admit I don't use Twitter myself and I've never investigated getting feeds)?
 
I only actually have the RSS feed on the homepage but there is another different Twitter feed on the chat page.

They're very simple to create - a few templates for the feed content and CSS and then an edit to add it to the sidebar.
You also need a Google API key for the RSS feed and you have to create the Twitter feeds from your account.
I have actually packaged mine into add-ons just for ease.

I created a guide here though: https://xenforo.com/community/resources/add-an-rss-feed-block-to-the-sidebar.341/
 
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