Title: Changing Sidebar Width in Modularity Lite Last modified: August 20, 2016 --- # Changing Sidebar Width in Modularity Lite * [Mimitopia](https://wordpress.org/support/users/mimitopia/) * (@mimitopia) * [14 years, 2 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/changing-sidebar-width-in-modularity-lite/) * Oops… I put this as a response to a similar thread earlier, but it would have been better to put it here, I guess. I’m afraid this is not brief, but it is as descriptive as I know how to be. And yes, I’ve looked all over for the solution, but have none that are in a language I understand. * This is my first time (now second) posting here, so please forgive my lack of knowledge. Here’s my site so far, in case it matters: [http://mimitopia.com/](http://mimitopia.com/) It’s functioning well so far, but I’d love to solve just this one issue. * I’ve been searching all over trying to figure out how to change the size of the sidebar in Modularity Lite, and have seen many posts including this one. But none of them have helped me. Right now I’m using the full-width option without a sidebar because the sidebar takes up so much space that there’s no room for my images. Since my website will be for selling art prints, I really need space for the images. However, I find there’s something “missing” by not having a sidebar. I’d like to have one, just skinnier. It seems weird to me to have that wide of a sidebar on a theme that’s meant for visual stuff. Still, I love the theme in every other way, so I’m not complaining… much. * I do not have a page in editor called “screen.css”. I have style.css of course, and supposedly I’m to put this code: * > .span-7 { width: 650px; } > .span-15 { width: 590px; } * Presumably I get to specify how many pixels wide each field is. But where exactly does the code go? Is there a line somewhere in style.css within which I paste the code? Or do I just drop it anywhere on the page, pinch my nose and dive in? I’m horribly inept at code-language and really need someone to tell me exactly where to put these things. * Okay, that’s a really long question for what I’m sure is a very simple issue. But simple or not, it has perplexed me for many hours, so I’m finally reaching out 🙂 * Thanks in advance! Viewing 15 replies - 1 through 15 (of 17 total) 1 [2](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/changing-sidebar-width-in-modularity-lite/page/2/?output_format=md) [→](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/changing-sidebar-width-in-modularity-lite/page/2/?output_format=md) * [Fire Truck](https://wordpress.org/support/users/zmv/) * (@zmv) * [14 years, 2 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/changing-sidebar-width-in-modularity-lite/#post-2647148) * In these sort of themes you shouldn’t touch `css` files but modify the php files. This theme is divided in 24 columns of equal width, the element width is controlled by expressions like this: `
` If you want to change the width, modify that `span-`some-number-here part. For example, you can set your main column to `span-20` and your sidebar to `span-4`, and the sidebar will be 5 times smaller then the main column. * Thread Starter [Mimitopia](https://wordpress.org/support/users/mimitopia/) * (@mimitopia) * [14 years, 2 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/changing-sidebar-width-in-modularity-lite/#post-2647186) * Thanks, zmv. I think I understand that. Getting to those PHP files shouldn’t be a problem. Locating the line of code you’re referring to and making the change could get interesting…. * So I’ll go fiddle with that and we’ll see what comes of it. I’ll post back as soon as I either break it or make it beautiful, whatever comes first. * Just a quick question, though. When you say “in these sorts of themes”, what do you mean by that? Knowing that might help me in choosing my next theme, so I’ll choose something that looks familiar. I paid for a “premium” theme that I haven’t touched yet because it reads like a foreign language to me. * Thanks again! * [Fire Truck](https://wordpress.org/support/users/zmv/) * (@zmv) * [14 years, 2 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/changing-sidebar-width-in-modularity-lite/#post-2647191) * > When you say “in these sorts of themes”, what do you mean by that? * I mean the themes that use ‘the grid system’, with these `span-24` things. They are very few of them. * Thread Starter [Mimitopia](https://wordpress.org/support/users/mimitopia/) * (@mimitopia) * [14 years, 2 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/changing-sidebar-width-in-modularity-lite/#post-2647196) * Okay… * Well, I’m really trying but just not getting this. I got sidetracked and fiddled with the Atahualpa theme a bit, but found it too complex despite its awesomeness, so I’m back here. * I think I understand what you’re saying about a grid system. So I went to edit in PHP. * Under Page Template (page.php) there’s this line: * >
”> * Nothing in there indicating size of the main column. * Under Sidebar (sidebar.php)there’s this line: * >
* If my math is correct, that indicates that the sidebar takes up 1/3 of the total space on my page. (8 out of 24 columns=1/3). So…. I’m going to try changing that number to “3” in order to make the sidebar 1/8th of the total page width, although I don’t appear to have access to the same parameters on the remaining columns of the page. What worries me is that I’ll end up with “dead” columns, if that makes any sense, because I haven’t told the web or whatever brain controls this thing where to put the remaining content. * So basically I have no idea what I’m doing, but I’m going to do it anyway. * We’ll see if the whole thing blows up now… * Thread Starter [Mimitopia](https://wordpress.org/support/users/mimitopia/) * (@mimitopia) * [14 years, 2 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/changing-sidebar-width-in-modularity-lite/#post-2647198) * Under Sidebar, I changed: * >
* to: * >
* and that did nothing. * Then I changed: * >
* to: * >
* and still nothing. * So I’m guessing I need to figure out where to change the span of the remaining columns? Any ideas? * Thank you again, so much. It’s great to talk to a real human. * [Fire Truck](https://wordpress.org/support/users/zmv/) * (@zmv) * [14 years, 2 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/changing-sidebar-width-in-modularity-lite/#post-2647199) * I just visited your site minitopia.com and couldn’t find any changes to the code. Please make changes to the site so that I could see them. * Thread Starter [Mimitopia](https://wordpress.org/support/users/mimitopia/) * (@mimitopia) * [14 years, 2 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/changing-sidebar-width-in-modularity-lite/#post-2647201) * Okay, will do that now. I had removed the sidebar again because it was squishing all my other content. * Thread Starter [Mimitopia](https://wordpress.org/support/users/mimitopia/) * (@mimitopia) * [14 years, 2 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/changing-sidebar-width-in-modularity-lite/#post-2647207) * PS, the site is mimitopia.com, not minitopia.com. In case you ended up in the wrong place 🙂 * [Fire Truck](https://wordpress.org/support/users/zmv/) * (@zmv) * [14 years, 2 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/changing-sidebar-width-in-modularity-lite/#post-2647208) * Your sidebar is there, but it’s empty. You probably should add some widgets to it in the admin area. The width of the main column is currently `span-15` which is a bit too small. How did you do that? By the way you can use [Firebug](http://getfirebug.com/) to examine your web page, it’s a great tool! * Thread Starter [Mimitopia](https://wordpress.org/support/users/mimitopia/) * (@mimitopia) * [14 years, 2 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/changing-sidebar-width-in-modularity-lite/#post-2647209) * I just added the Pages widget to see what it would look like. I didn’t make any changes to the main column, because I can’t find the files to makes changes to. Under Page template (page.php), the only line indicating anything that might be width is this line: * >
”> * I tried replacing the above line with this one: * >
* but all that did was hide the sidebar completely. * Thread Starter [Mimitopia](https://wordpress.org/support/users/mimitopia/) * (@mimitopia) * [14 years, 2 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/changing-sidebar-width-in-modularity-lite/#post-2647210) * I’ll look into that Firebug thing. I did inspect my site using the Firefox Web Developer tool, but there’s nothing on there indicating column width, or span, either. At least not that I can see. * I bet web designers read these forums just to laugh at noobs like me. As soon as I make a sale, the first thing I’m doing is paying for help, lol. * [Fire Truck](https://wordpress.org/support/users/zmv/) * (@zmv) * [14 years, 2 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/changing-sidebar-width-in-modularity-lite/#post-2647214) * Try to find a way to change the main content width in Modularity options. If you can’t go to the file `functions.php` and find the line * ``` if ( $options['sidebar'] == 1 ) { echo "15 colborder home"; } ``` * This line must be the culprit. Try changing `15` to some other number and see what happens. * Thread Starter [Mimitopia](https://wordpress.org/support/users/mimitopia/) * (@mimitopia) * [14 years, 2 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/changing-sidebar-width-in-modularity-lite/#post-2647216) * In functions.php, I found this line: * > $content_width = 950; // pixels * I’ll try changing it, but seems to me that 950 is already plenty wide, so I’m not sure… * Thread Starter [Mimitopia](https://wordpress.org/support/users/mimitopia/) * (@mimitopia) * [14 years, 2 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/changing-sidebar-width-in-modularity-lite/#post-2647217) * Changed * > $content_width = 950; // pixels * to * > $content_width = 1200; // pixels * but nothing changed, so I switched it back. * I’m about to give up and just figure on not having a sidebar for a while… sigh… Or maybe I’ll have to go theme shopping again. * Thread Starter [Mimitopia](https://wordpress.org/support/users/mimitopia/) * (@mimitopia) * [14 years, 2 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/changing-sidebar-width-in-modularity-lite/#post-2647218) * Thanks so much for all your help zmv. I’m going to press Pause on this issue for now though, and shop around in a few other themes. If I don’t find something marvelous, I’ll definitely give this theme another go – because it really is a nice one. Viewing 15 replies - 1 through 15 (of 17 total) 1 [2](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/changing-sidebar-width-in-modularity-lite/page/2/?output_format=md) [→](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/changing-sidebar-width-in-modularity-lite/page/2/?output_format=md) The topic ‘Changing Sidebar Width in Modularity Lite’ is closed to new replies. ## Tags * [lite](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/lite/) * [modularity](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/modularity/) * [sidebar](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/sidebar/) * [width](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/width/) * 17 replies * 2 participants * Last reply from: [Mimitopia](https://wordpress.org/support/users/mimitopia/) * Last activity: [14 years, 2 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/changing-sidebar-width-in-modularity-lite/page/2/#post-2647220) * Status: not resolved ## Topics ### Topics with no replies ### Non-support topics ### Resolved topics ### Unresolved topics ### All topics