There is now a tutorial on creating a sidebar on SSbits.com

http://www.ssbits.com/create-a-static-sidebar-editable-from-the-cms/

Thanks for the helpful info.
I couldn't get your suggestion to work -- error of unexpected ");" kept popping up -- until I removed a couple of commas after 'LinkText' => 'LinkText' and 'getCMSFields_forPopup' in LinksPage.php (See below for modified version).

$LinkField = new HasManyComplexTableField(
$this,
'Links',
'Link',
array(
'Link' => 'Link',
'LinkText' => 'LinkText'
),
'getCMSFields_forPopup'
);

Is there a way of having a drop down selection of the available internal links rather then having to manually enter in each link -- similar to your static sidebar tutorial, but also still having the "Add a link" option so that one can a number of links with only one drop down menu of links (pop-up?)

Thanks,
Sam

Wow i have found a lot of useful info here , thanks guys :D

Hello Aram,

How about making 2 or even 3 CMS editable blocks that appear on all pages?

Hi Profimus,

it works exactly the same, just repeat as desired!

Have a run through the tutorial on SSbits.com. All you need to do is create some extra fields in hte CMS and output them in your template :)

Aram

Hello aram,

I've managed to add the static sidebar as you describe in your article on ssbits to my website. However, when I try to add a poll to it using the poll module (http://doc.silverstripe.org/modules:polls?s[]=poll) nothing happens.

I know the poll module is working because if I add the $MyPoll call in the Sidebar.ss file immediately above or below the <% include StaticSidebar %> line, it works. However when I add the $MyPoll call in the StaticSidebar.ss file immediately below the <h3> line, nothing happens.

Do you have any idea as to why this might be happening?

My goal is to have a random poll visible on every page, not just the pages that have a dynamic sidebar.

Thanks,
James

PS: Please let me know if you need more information to help solve this problem, I'm a newbie at web development in PHP, so I don't really know what additional information would be of use to you.

Hi Atragon,

try using $Top.MyPoll

basically as soon as you do <% control StaticSidebar %> you are now within the context of the static sidebar, which doesnt know what $MyPoll is, so you can use 'Top' to jump back to the top level page context to call your poll.

Aram

Aram,

That did the job perfectly, thank you very much.

James