Now, this is something that took me a while to learn myself. Today, I’ll be showing you how to create 2 seperate widget ready sidebars.
First, you should already understand the basics of setting up a widget sidebar. In order to set up a widget sidebar, you need to components. You need your functions.php and your sidebar.php. Your functions.php should look like this:
<?php
if ( function_exists(’register_sidebar’) )
register_sidebar();
?>
Your sidebar.php should look similar to this:
<div class=’sidebar’>
<?php if( function_exists(’dynamic_sidebar’) && dynamic_sidebar() ) : else : ?>
STATIC SIDEBAR CONTENT
<?php endif; ?>
That will give you the basic single sidebar widget. Now, in order to create two sidebars, we need to make the functions.php a little more advanced. Replace your functions.php with
<?php
if (function_exists(’register_sidebar’))
{
register_sidebar(array(
‘name’ => ‘left_sidebar’
));register_sidebar(array(
‘name’ => right_sidebar’
));
}?>
What this does is:
- Declares if Sidebar widget is turned on
- Creates an array, and declares left_sidebar
- Creates an array, and declares right_sidebar
Now, if you look at your Widgets Tab (In the wp-admin, under Presentation, Widgets) you should now have two dynamic sidebars. Each sidebar allows you to enter different widgets, on each sidebar. Now, this isn’t complete, you now need to change your sidebar code.
Open up your Sidebar file(s), since you have two sidebars, you might want them seperate. Now, replace your <?php ?> function with this one,
<?php
if ( !function_exists(’dynamic_sidebar’) || !dynamic_sidebar(’left_sidebar’) ) : else :
?>What this does is:
- Checks to see if your dynamic_sidebar is turned on
- Selects the sidebar, left_sidebar
This will now display the left_sidebar. Simply copy that code, and replace left_sidebar with right_sidebar to display the right sidebar.
Using this, you can have several widgetized sidebars!