Make sidebars float/stick to the the top of the page when scrolled

There are things that you just want to always keep in view of the people surfing your site. They might be site navigation options to help you expose more content, a contact form, an advertisement or whatever else is important to you.

The proper way to achieve that is to locate it in a sidebar above the fold so the users will be exposed to it right when the page load, but if the content of the page is long the user is likely to scroll down the page and not see it, and users are lazy and less likely to scroll back.

This plugin helps in solving the issue by “floating” the sidebar and keeping it always in view for the user, no matter how much he scrolled. You can configure it to keep different distance from the top of the screen for logged out and logged in user to take account for “admin bars” and configure the feature to be activated only for minimal screen width to make sure that it will not ruin responsive designs in which usually the sidebar is located below the content and not next to it.

Settings

The plugin adds a widget named “Float the sidebar” and adding it to a sidebar, no matter at which location, will make the sidebar float.

The widget configuration panel includes the following options

  • Margin from top for not logged-in users – The minimal distance between the top of the browser window and the sidebar for not logged in user. Floating is activated once the sidebar is scrolled higher then that and keeps the sidebar at that distance.
  • Margin from top for logged in users – Same as above, but allows you to set a different distance for logged in users if you happen to show some special “admin bar”/menu at the top for logged in users.
  • Minimal screen width – The minimal screen width (technically browser window width) for which the feature will be activated.

Compatibility

WordPress 3.9 and above, both in standalone and multisite/network configurations.

Top 10 themes from the theme repository plus the storefront theme (WooCommerce free theme) and Vendd  thee (EDD free theme).

Browser compatibility – modern chrome, firefox, and safari, IE9 and above.

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