Defining new sidebar with in your functions.php
<?php
if ( function_exists('register_sidebar') ) {
register_sidebar(array(
'before_widget' => '<li id="%1$s" class="widget %2$s">',
'after_widget' => '</li>',
'before_title' => '<h2 class="widgettitle">',
'after_title' => '</h2>'
));
}?>
Once these are functions are defined, you will notice the extra sidebar appear in the WordPress Dashboard under the Appearance > Widgets option. It’s here that you can drag and drop all your widgets into your various sidebars.
<?php
if ( function_exists('register_sidebar') ) {
register_sidebar(array(
'name' => 'sidebar 1',
'before_widget' => '<div id="%1$s" class="widget %2$s">',
'after_widget' => '</div>',
'before_title' => '<h2>',
'after_title' => '</h2>'
));
register_sidebar(array(
'name' => 'footer sidebar 1',
'before_widget' => '<div id="%1$s" class="widget %2$s">',
'after_widget' => '</div>',
'before_title' => '<h2>',
'after_title' => '</h2>'
));
}?>
Adding new sidebar to your template
Within your sidebar.php file, change the call to your existing sidebar to include its name that you defined within the functions.php file earlier.
<?php if ( !function_exists('dynamic_sidebar') || !dynamic_sidebar('sidebar 1') ) : ?>
<h2>Articles by month</h2>
<ul>
<?php wp_get_archives('title_li=&type=monthly'); ?>
</ul>
<h2>Categories</h2>
<ul>
<?php wp_list_categories('show_count=0&title_li='); ?>
</ul>
<?php endif; ?>
To add your new sidebar, you can either copy the above code or you can simply copy the following lines. Add these lines to wherever you’d like your new widgets to appear. In this example you can see from the name that I’m placing mine in the footer of my website. As before, don’t forget to specify the correct sidebar name. In the above code, the html that appears between the php statements is what will appear when there are no widgets added to your sidebar. This ‘default’ code can obviously be modified to suit your theme. In the following code, since there is no extra html, nothing will be displayed unless a widget has been added into the sidebar within your WordPress dashboard.
<?php if ( !function_exists('dynamic_sidebar') || !dynamic_sidebar('footer sidebar 1') ) : ?>
<?php endif; ?>