As blogging continues to evolve and WordPress themes continue to become more functional, it is my belief that we will start to see more themes using tabs to help manage sidebar content. The problem with sidebar tabs is that they require Javascript to use, so very few themes seem to be using them.
I won’t claim to be a whiz with javascript, but I found that creating tabs was not overly difficult. I’ve recently switched a section of my sidebar over to tabs on my other primary blog, Slick Affiliate, to help manage my sidebar content. So far I am very happy with the results. It allows me to provide readers with a bunch of different site navigation options while not really taking up any extra room, so people that want it can use and it isn’t in the way for people that don’t want to browse archives or see my top commentators.
If you are interested in doing something similar for your weblog, Headset Options wrote a series of posts studying the anatomy of a Magazine WordPress theme. The second post is actually dedicated to covering some types of javascript and focuses on Domtab and Tabber. You’ll find a nice examination and then a tutorial of how to add this to your WordPress blog. If you aren’t familiar with either type of javascript, I recommend you start with Tabber, as it is quite a bit easier to work with in my opinion.
What is your opinion of sidebar tabs? Do you find it more convenient or does it make the content harder to find?
Kyle Eslick
Kyle Eslick is WordPress enthusiast who took his passion for WordPress to the next level back in 2007 by launching WPHacks.com as a place to share hacks and review WordPress-related products.
May 2012, and still a useful post. That's good value! 
Nice collection you have there. Spectrum was the one for me. Thanks!
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I’ve shied away from tabs for exactly that reason – the javascript. How does Google / the other search engines index links that are buried in that javascript? If I tabbed anything, it would be my category links.. I wouldn’t want to compromise the indexability ( totally made up word ) of those links.
Any idea what the final word on search engines and javascript these days?
here is a discussion about Google’s ability to spider javascript – http://www.daniweb.com/forums/thread6990.html
This might be of interest too?
http://ekstreme.com/thingsofsorts/seosem/google-now-recognizes-javascript-links-as-backlinks
i want to make ajak tabs…how to make it?
http://www.placepay.com
Hi
Thanks for sharing.
I have been toying with the idea to get coder to create a tab theme. However I am concern if they are Search Engine friendly? Are the content on the non default tab being crawled?
I was looking for this from quite a long time, but have you tried this plugin called section tabbed wordpress?
I like the tabs
It enables you to offer the information to the reader without cluttering up the sidebar but put the decision making in the hands of the reader.
Obviously there should be strategy as to what the default selected tab is. No sense having it on something nobody clicks.
I am trying to get this up and going on my blog without much success.
I like the way you implement it.
Phill
I’m currently using domtab for my blog, it’s awesome, thanks for the post