Title: Sidebar: background color, adding elements
Last modified: August 18, 2016

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# Sidebar: background color, adding elements

 *  [spine](https://wordpress.org/support/users/spine/)
 * (@spine)
 * [20 years, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/sidebar-background-color-adding-elements/)
 * Hello,
 * I’m new to WP and a code newbie to boot. I’ve got a couple of questions about
   the sidebar on my [blog in progress](http://www.masaladose.com).
 * First, the border and background color for the sidebar seem to be missing. Any
   ideas why? I’m using the Anthurium Mix theme. I’ve been playing with the .css
   style sheet a little–e.g., to replace the masthead with my own graphic, to hide
   the text that would otherwise appear over the masthead, etc.
 * I’m also looking at how to go about adding things to the sidebar. I see that 
   lots of plugins are available for adding different features, but I’m just interested
   in putting a brief quotation or something at the top of the sidebar. I know this
   is covered to some degree in the Codex, but I’d appreciate being pointed in the
   right direction.
 * Thanks in advance.

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)

 *  [oriecat](https://wordpress.org/support/users/oriecat/)
 * (@oriecat)
 * [20 years, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/sidebar-background-color-adding-elements/#post-259405)
 * This file comes up as 404 when selecting the sidebar background
    [http://www.masaladose.com/wp-content/themes/anthurium/images/menu.gif](http://www.masaladose.com/wp-content/themes/anthurium/images/menu.gif)
   So maybe you forgot to upload it?
 *  [oriecat](https://wordpress.org/support/users/oriecat/)
 * (@oriecat)
 * [20 years, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/sidebar-background-color-adding-elements/#post-259406)
 * As for the quotation, will it be the same all the time, or do you want to easily
   change it, or have a file full of them that it randomly pulls from, or what?
 *  Thread Starter [spine](https://wordpress.org/support/users/spine/)
 * (@spine)
 * [20 years, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/sidebar-background-color-adding-elements/#post-259407)
 * Wow, that was fast! Thanks, oriecat–the problem, strangely enough, is that the
   file for the sidebar background was named “menu.gif.gif”. I removed the superfluous“.
   gif” and that did the trick.
 * The quotation at the top of the sidebar may change from time to time, but for
   the most part it’ll be static–so I don’t think I need one of the “randomizer”
   plugins. I also may want to add a brief “About the site” paragraph to the sidebar,
   along with small banners for political campaigns and other temporary images and
   text. You get the idea. I’m sure I’ll need to get more comfortable with coding
   and with associating sidebar elements with the .css style sheet. I did manage
   to insert text into the sidebar by modifying the sidebar.php file, but I don’t
   know how to position the text to my liking, apply different styles, etc. Any 
   tips would be welcome!
 * Thanks again.

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)

The topic ‘Sidebar: background color, adding elements’ is closed to new replies.

 * In: [Fixing WordPress](https://wordpress.org/support/forum/how-to-and-troubleshooting/)
 * 3 replies
 * 2 participants
 * Last reply from: [spine](https://wordpress.org/support/users/spine/)
 * Last activity: [20 years, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/sidebar-background-color-adding-elements/#post-259407)
 * Status: not a support question

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