Customizable Blog Sidebar

Store Design
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Topic summary

A user seeks recommendations for Shopify themes or apps that support customizable blog sidebars, wanting to add categories, images, text, menus, and products. They particularly admire the sidebar implementations in the Pursuit and Piano themes (especially Piano’s mobile tab drawer) but need themes with additional features.

Key Question: If custom code is added by an expert, will it persist through theme updates or require manual reapplication each time?

Community Responses:

  • One developer requested design mockups to provide specific guidance
  • Page builder apps like GemPages were suggested as a potential solution
  • Multiple respondents confirmed that custom code modifications typically don’t survive theme updates and must be reapplied after each update
  • One service provider offered affordable custom coding but noted they don’t provide lifetime update support

Status: The discussion remains open with no definitive solution identified. The user faces a trade-off between using page builder apps versus custom code that requires maintenance after theme updates.

Summarized with AI on November 2. AI used: claude-sonnet-4-5-20250929.
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I am looking for some suggestions for a theme or even app that can add a customizable blog sidebar and blog article sidebar. Would like to add blog categories, image, text, menu, products, etc. The Shopify theme store does not offer a filter to search for this specific feature and I have been working my way through suggestions made when searching Google.

I love the blog sidebar offered by the themes Pursuit and Piano (especially on mobile view - the tab drawer is awesome) However, the rest of these themes do not offer everything I am looking for.

Any suggestions for themes or apps that offer blog sidebar? If I pay an expert to add it to my code, will my theme be able to automatically update and carry those code changes or will I need to have the code transferred every time the theme is updated?

Thank you for your help!

2 Likes
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Hello @copperknoll

Okay, you can share the design of how you want the blog sidebar to look, so I can check and guide you accordingly.

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Hello @copperknoll ,

You can check for page builder app like Gempages .

With custom code it’s also possible to do it a/to your need but yes you need to copy code each time when you update the theme.

In some cases it’s complex but sometimes few developers code in a way that it’s not hard to copy the code and implement it on an updated version.

Regards

Guleria

4

Hi @copperknoll

Thank you for reaching out and sharing your requirements for a customizable blog sidebar and blog article sidebar on your Shopify store.

We specialize in custom coding to tailor your Shopify theme to perfectly fit your needs. We can integrate a fully customizable blog sidebar that includes blog categories, images, text, menus, products, and more—exactly as you envision.

Please note that since our services involve custom code modifications, future theme updates by Shopify may affect these customizations. When Shopify updates a theme, it might overwrite or alter the customized code, potentially disrupting your blog sidebar functionalities. To ensure your customizations remain intact after each theme update, you would need to re-apply the custom code.

While we do not offer lifetime updates, we provide this customization service at an affordable rate. Should you choose to update your theme in the future, we are available to assist you with re-implementing the custom code to maintain seamless functionality.

Please, let us know if your interested. Thanks!