WordPress: header / footer / sidebar html content.

Hello forum people,

Creating my first WordPress theme here, and I am wondering what the best way is to control HTML content in the header / footer / sidebar areas.

You can see a good example of the type of content I’m talking about by viewing this picture The three boxes along the top (title, bit of text, image, and a link).

I could just have this small piece of content hard coded into the template, but this means any updates would require editing this file.

How do others do this?

• Create an un-published page, so uses can control this content using the WYSIWYG editor? Pull this page content out into the header/footer/sidebar area?

• Create a side bar, with a “text” widget in it?

• Create a new menu in the “appearance” tab with some custom php coding in it (similar to the default “header appearance” menu)

• Just leave it as part of the template (easiest option) if a user wants to change it, they modify the template?

Any pointers or examples greatly appreciated.

Cheers heaps,

Dave

Personally, I’ve found the best way of handling this is to create a ‘theme options page’ in the dashboard (your Option #3). I’ve wrote a tutorial on this here

Here is an example of how I implemented something similar in my ‘Creative.Industry’ template.

I’m going to use this too, thanks Dan

Looks perfect, thanks danharper!

Do you know if it’s possible to have multiple custom menu’s under the “appearance” tab on the left?

I quickly tried but just ended up with multiple menu’s that linked to the same page, I’ll give it a better go when my brain wakes up.

Cheers!