Fallback to default sidebar behavior when forum sidebar is not configured

[RachelRVasquez]

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Changes proposed in this Pull Request:

Bug: bbPress pages show empty sidebar column when no forum CPT sidebar is configured

Problem

On bbPress forum pages, the sidebar column would render visibly in the layout (respecting the Customizer layout settings) but contain no widgets.

The cause was in memberlite_get_widget_areas() in inc/sidebars.php. For bbPress pages, the function unconditionally replaced the default widget areas with the result of memberlite_get_default_sidebar_by_post_type( 'forum' ):

$widget_areas = array( memberlite_get_default_sidebar_by_post_type( 'forum' ) );

When no forum-specific CPT sidebar had been configured in Memberlite → Custom Sidebars, that function returns false, resulting in $widget_areas = array( false ). Calling dynamic_sidebar( false ) renders nothing, leaving the sidebar column empty even though the layout expected content there.

Fix

Guard the override so it only applies when a valid forum CPT sidebar is actually configured. If none is set (or the value is the 'memberlite_sidebar_default' sentinel), $widget_areas is left unchanged, falling back to sidebar-2 (Posts & Archives) as it would for any other non-page, non-blog context.

$forum_sidebar = memberlite_get_default_sidebar_by_post_type( 'forum' );
if ( ! empty( $forum_sidebar ) && 'memberlite_sidebar_default' !== $forum_sidebar ) {
    $widget_areas = array( $forum_sidebar );
}

Behavior After Fix

Forum CPT sidebar setting	Before	After
Not configured	Empty sidebar column	Falls back to sidebar-2
Configured to a specific sidebar	Used that sidebar ✓	Used that sidebar ✓
Set to memberlite_sidebar_default	Empty sidebar column	Falls back to sidebar-2

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Changelog entry

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