Adding Extra Sidebar to your WordPress Theme

I am happy to learn it

I want to change the layout of my homepage columns. Do I do this is the home.php file? The theme I’m using is from StudioPress the Corporate theme, it doesn’t have an option of the layout i want for the homepage. I want a 2/3 column at the top lest, another 2/3 column under that to the left, to the right I want a 1/3 column that’s height is the total of the two columns to the left, then I want a footer colunm under all this the entire width of the page. I don’t know PHP.

Thank you, your tutorial saved me a tonne of time, I was searching for how to do 2 sidebars for ages! Thanks

can we use software to add sidebar wp?

Very very cool. Thank you. very good explanation.

John.

Kalau mau pesan, bisa dengan tranfer bank tidak …..

Thank you very much for your tip. I didn’t think that making a separate side-bar was that easy. I was able to make a totally separate sidebar for my blog and a sidebar for my other blog pages. Thank you very much!

great tip. Thanks for share it!

Just wanted to say thanks for the tutorial – I’ve used it three times just this week 🙂

Great tutorial. Thanks for sharing.

very very easy..
thanks for sharing..

Hello,

I’ve defined 2 sidebars, in the way you mentioned in the tutorial. I’m using the 2 column WordPress theme Fallseason from the WordPress Theme Park of Sadish. A very nice theme.

Sidebar 2 I’ve used for the index homepage.
And sidebar 1, the original one for the rest of the pages.

But now I can’t add any new activated widget to sidebar 1. Sidebar 2 no problem. But sidebar 1 gives an internal error as follows:

*Internal Server Error
*The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your *request.
*Please contact the server administrator, [email protected] and inform them of the time the error *occurred, and anything you might have done that may have caused the error.

*More information about this error may be available in the server error log.

It’s a database access error, I think. How to solve this problem, so that I will be able to add a new activated widget in Sidebar1?

Thanksss, Lydia

p.s I like this 2sidebar solution a lot. But it does not really look like 2 sidebars. Also it’s only possible to add a widgets once to a sidebar.. it’s not possible to add a widget to both sidebars.

Hi,

Thanks a lot. Your post is very useful to creating sidebars in a simplest way.

this is great! thanks!

@Trisha:- Thanks for this reply, I had the same problem and it helped a lot! Thank you!

Thanks a lot for this it helped me out a great deal.

Ok….did everything and was great EXCEPT I want the extra sidebar on the opposite side.

Your instructions –

Now take a look at the index.php file carefully and find a suitable place to insert the second sidebar. This might involve modifying your layout or adding new divs. Once you find a suitable place, place the following code there :-

My problem is the last thing before the end of the page code is “get sidebar”. If I add the second sidebar there, then there are 2 on one side.

Can you help me set it so there are sidebars on BOTH sides?

Thx for the tutorial. I was trying to add a column for advertising and couldn’t figure out why my ads weren’t showing. After reading the tutorial, I realized that I forgot to place my “call code” in the index file.

Great site – keep up the helpful and informative work~!

ok so the code disappeared somewhere … basically in has

TEMPLATEPATH . ‘/browse

and not TEMPLATEPATH . ‘/sidebar

any ideas?

hi there thanks for this! I’m working with a theme which is perfect for my needs but it has no sidebar! I can’t look for another one just because of this. Is there a way to add one?

Hi there,

Your quick-fix tut saved my skin when developing for my first client. Thanks so much for providing this here. I’ve bookmarked your article and will trackback when I get a chance.

Hi, I’m not sure if i will get a reply or not. But let me ask you. How can i add a widget area beneath post ??
Thank you in advance.

Now i’ve changed everthing back to normal, but still wondering about the bullet points…

hello! thanks for the very easy understandable explanation.
i coul add another sidebar, but now i’ve got bullet poist in my layout. i searched for list-style-types in my css, or for “square”, but could find anything, that could remove them.
help me please…

thx, Bull

thx a lot, man

Really useful post and easy to follow.

I thought I would share the few problems I encountered along the way:

1) In the functions.php file, I had a register_sidebar() function – you need to make sure you change this to register_sidebars(n) (where n is the number of sidebars) as register_sidebar seems to only register the one!
2) In your index.php file, rather than seeing you might only see get_sidebar() (which is equivalent to
3) you may also need to make changes to other template files (e.g. page.php, single.php, 404.php) as well as index.php (depending on theme).

My functions.php file shows:

if ( function_exists(‘register_sidebar’) )
register_sidebar(array(
‘before_widget’ => ”,
‘after_widget’ => ”,
‘before_title’ => ”,
‘after_title’ => ”,
))

I have nowhere to change the number of register_sidebar. How do I add a sidebar to the above code?

Hey, How can you modify the above code so that each sidebar has it’s own name when you are in the widget screen?

for example I don’t want ‘sidebar 1’, ‘sidebar 2’, ‘sidebar 3’, etc.

I want menu 1, footwear 2, store 3, etc… the numbers coming from the %d code.

Anyone know?

Thank you very much. This was very helpful!

@Maddog:- Could you give us a bit more info, Maddog? A url might be helpful. I’m guessing this is probably a CSS or XHTML issue.

Awesome… thanks!

so if i did this right the second sidebar will show up in the right side of my blog as a 3 columns theme with 1 sidebar on both side?

thanks a lot! great and to-the-point tut!

exactly what i needed!

Well done, and thank you! I love the simplicity of language and instructions.

Great tutorial! But I’m at a loss…
My theme only has one sidebar, but has a functions.php file. This is its contents:

”,
‘after_widget’ => ”,
‘before_title’ => ”,
‘after_title’ => ”,
));
?>

Calendar

—

What do I need to do to add a second sidebar?

@canute:-

i just solve it
nice tutorial
thanks

Thanks for the article. Worked great first time. I was able to add a second widgetized sidebar to my 2 column theme, and make it 3 columns. Your instructions were very easy to follow, accurate and detailed. I thank you sir!

For the doubters here check the results:
http://www.devision.com.au/blog/

@Dan:-
Hello,
I do not see a reply to this particular question. I have the same problem. My index.php does not contain include lines instead it contains a call get_sidebar(). I do not know how to change this to get a second sidebar. I have made the changes to functions.php and made the files sidebar1.php and sidebar2.php so I do see it in worpress editor but it does not appear on page as I cannot firgure out what to use instead of get_sidebar. Would really appreciate the help.

i was confused with the code as i was using 2 lines in functions.php
if (function_exists(‘register_sidebars’)) register_sidebars(1);
if (function_exists(‘register_sidebars’)) register_sidebars(2);

my bad as it screwed my head for 30 min, but its ok now, i removed the first line as i have to use only one single code
if (function_exists(‘register_sidebars’)) register_sidebars(2);
just have to increase the number for more sidebars.

Thanks alot.

so many thanks dude, u really saved my whole life x) im tryin to desing my own wordpress theme from scratch and.. i was soooo stucked on “how can i make 2 sidebars¿? :S” thanx a lot 🙂 happy new year! haha =)

@Missy:- haha! good to see you here 🙂

Awesome post man, really helped me with the include code, that is gold!

@ayahshiva:-

Why not ? Some would find this really usefull. When you want to mix diferent stylles toghether you need to know how to proceed.

I have the same issue with vncomet:

I want to display my adsense blocks outside the content div on the left side, and outside the sidebar on the right side.

Does anyoneknow how to do this, Im guessing I would have to make two more columns, one on each side?

I made this sketch to show what I mean.
http://gmx.no/sketch.jpg

Hey! Nice post. It helped me a lot. Thanks.

Great tutorial. I am using the Theme Dark Night Everything looks good until I go to the Index.php file.

That line of code isn’t in the index file or anywhere else for that matter. Am I screwed?

@Trisha:- my darn keyboard. lets try this again, all in one post.

there is no code built in to your css for adding an extra sidebar. You will want to add an id tag for your sidebar2. this is the code i use to style my extra sidebar, and by adding the ul and list-style:none… it will get rid of the list your complaining about:

#sidebar2 ul {
width:500px;
margin:20px auto; padding:10px;
background:white; border:1px solid #999; list-style: none;
}

then just add the div in your sidebar2.php

hope this helps

its been over a year and this code still works, the only code i found that works. THANKS SO MUCH!

Luke, I misread your post. If it is showing but not in the right place, ( maybe under ) everything, then it is a CSS problem for sure .There may not be enough width to handle everything.

JIM

Greetings …

This tutorial is easy to follow and (almost) gave me great results. My problem:

I’ve tried placing the “” tag **everywhere** in my index.php but it will not sit in a sidebar position. That is to say, it appears and it works, it’s just in the wrong position on my blog.

I’m using a pretty old theme (Water 1.0 – http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/water) so perhaps a 2nd sidebar is impossible. Can anyone let me know?

Or is there a way to create a 3rd column in which to place the 2nd sidebar?

Thanks …

This is SO helpful. AND … what I’d REALLY love is a sidebar that scrolls independently, so that it remains visible no matter how far down in the blog someone scrolls.

Is there a way to implement this?

Jai,

Why can this line

Not be included in this code

You can see I tried but it will not show up on index.php after the category listings.

Daily Press Theme

Thanks

Jim

Jim

I currently have a theme on our website that’s a single column, no sidebar. When I followed your steps to add a sidebar I couldn’t make it all the way through the steps because it would give me errors (line3) etc. I would have to re-upload the original themes *.php files to fix it. Bottom line, What am I doing wrong?

@Jai:-

Thanks Jai, That is exactly what I thought. It would so easy to just get another theme that has what I want, but I have put in a lot of time and learning on mine, so someday i will get it all added.

THANKS

Jim

Now take a look at the index.php file carefully and find a suitable place to insert the second sidebar. This might involve modifying your layout or adding new divs. Once you find a suitable place,

That’s a big BS…
Your post title is misleading completely. You are just describing very superficially, how to add widgets to a second sidebar — NOT how to add a second sidebar in the design/layout.
So, basically, for those that have a one-sidebar theme – this “tutorial” is absolutely useless.

@JIM:-

?php include (TEMPLATEPATH .’/sidebar1.php’); ?

@JIM:-

Jai, in the ‘open Air’ theme the Teplatepaths are in the Blog.php file. I did add both Templatepath statements to it.

I think the no display is really the added CSS for the left new sidebar. If you look at my site, I adjusted the other columns to the right, but something in the new DIV is not right yet.

THANKS

Jim

@Jai:-

Thanks Jai, yes I did. Funny thing is my index.php did not have the original sidebar statement in it that you talked about

that was not in my index.php file

@JIM:-

Jai, i know i am the last person to see and look at this tutorial, but I would really like to get it installed for ads on the left side.

I spent last night adjusting my online site to make room on the left. That in itself for a non GURU took hours.

After trying to get things to add the sidebar it just will not display for me. In the design-widgets drop down box, I do have sidebar 1 and sidebar 2. I added a calendar to sidebar 2 but no display.

Any help greatly appreciated.

JIM

can we use software to add sidebar wp?

A brilliant tutorial, mine didn’t work exactly as described, but worked perfectly. Took less than an hour to put in a second bar, and place it nicely.

Thanks very much.
n

hey i have other problem i cannot find this:

my index.php look like this

<h3 class=”entrytitle” id=”post-“> <a href=”” rel=”bookmark”>

Posted <?php
the_time(‘F j, Y ‘);
$comments_img_link= ”;
if (function_exists(‘enp_edit_link’)) { enp_edit_link(__(‘ Edit This’)); }
else { edit_post_link(__(‘Edit This’)); } ?>

<!–

–>

Nice tutorial, but this isn’t that helpful for those who are looking to add a sidebar for themes that have none defined already. Can somebody point me in the direction of a good one?

email – cyclosity (@) gmail.com

HEY THE NEW SIDEBAR AUTOMATICALLY CODES WITH BULLETS. HOW DO I GET RID OF THAT? I’VE TRIED EVERY REMEDY AND NOTHING IS WORKING!

You left out the part about how to get the additional column in the right alignment. Everything works up to that point.

I’ve gotten everything to work, except the alignment, as you mentioned might be a problem.

I can’t seem to get my new, 4th, column to sit next to the others, it keeps tucking itself below the 3rd column. I’ve tried extending the fixed width to fit it all, but i can’t get it to move. How do I fix this?

any help would be greatly appreciated.

packing sand grain by grain but i told my buddy i would finish this project for him. i hope i do. this tutorial helped me. thanks a bunch!

anyone use Flash news theme from woothemes ? I recently bought it a while ago and can not for the sakes of me , get any kind of sidebar running on it.

It’s either you use their already pre-made sidebar or that’s it.

After I tried to follow your directions it seems to work for half a second then disappears.

sorry I dont know whats going on I cant show the code properly. I get the pho get_sidebar thing

Just like Dan Im not seeing on Idex.php. Instead I’m getting this: 🙁

What should I do?

I’m working on a theme has a sidebar, but I can’t see how it is called to pages. There is no file like to be found anywhere.

And yeah, modifying functions.php as you suggest causes an error.

Question: what about the header. I have a flash header and would like to know if the second sidebar will go under the header if i extend it or go beside it?

my sidebar functions starts like this
if ( function_exists(‘register_sidebar’) )
{
register_sidebar(array(
‘before_widget’ => ”,
‘after_widget’ => ”,
‘before_title’ => ”,
‘after_title’ => ”,
));
}
how to make my sidebar increase??thanks in advance.

thanks a lot.. this is really help full

Thank you for this tutorial.

I was checking this for a client and you save my day. 😀

Rui

forget that – forgot to put a (2) in the second sidebar file. all is well now!

Thanks a lot

IF you are getting a parse error..make sure you are inserting the right code in sidebar2.php, etc.

Try this:

I followed your steps exactly and am getting this:
Warning: Cannot modify header information – headers already sent by (output started at /home/tablefou/public_html/momcooks/wp-content/themes/rockinruby-10/functions.php:6) in /home/tablefou/public_html/momcooks/wp-admin/theme-editor.php on line 60

I don’t understand what adding a second sidebar has to do with the header. Any suggestions?

should mention that my blog had NO sidebars to start with.

This was exactly what I was looking for but could you perhaps elaborate or do a tutorial on the following for we novices brave enough to attempt this?

“find a suitable place to insert the second sidebar. This might involve modifying your layout or adding new divs. Once you find a suitable place, place the following code there :-”

Or even provide a link to where we can find this info?

Cheers,
DBR

excellent tutorial, I needed this for my site to display RSS feeds from multiple places, thanks a million

I am currently using the Silverlight-01 Theme. (Thank you very much!)

The theme says it’s supposed to come with 2 sidebars. I tried dragging widgets into both
Sidebar 1 and Sidebar 2 under >Presentation >Widgets. However, only the widgets from side Sidebar 2 show up (they show on the right hand side of the screen). How can I make the widgets from Sidebar 1 show up on the left hand side of the screen?

Since I think the theme was meant to have 2 sidebars, I didn’t want to mess with the code and screw it up.

However I did create the files sidebar1.php and sidebar2.php as the article describes.

Thanks for the help.

Chris

i did whatever this tutorial said but i am getting this error

Warning: array_merge() [function.array-merge]: Argument #2 is not an array in \wp-includes\widgets.php on line 53

Nice Article. I have a post on my blog about why having two sidebars can benefit the site in terms of ease of navigation and advetisement revenue.

You can find the post here: http://bitfilm.net/2008/02/24/the-benefits-of-having-two-sidebars/

Again:

”,
‘after_widget’ => ”,
‘before_title’ => ”,
‘after_title’ => ”,
));
?>

Thanks.I’ll optimize my wp to sell in ebay.

I followed step by step…. in index.php there is no ” include sidebar” its somethig with “get sidebar()”.
I’m not seeing the second sidebar 🙁

in the widgets section i got two sidebars that i created from your tutorial.. it’s great! Just trying to figure out more or less the same as “amr” is trying to figure.. how to get the bar over to the far right side instead of in the middle of the blog : )

This 4 sidebar themes looks like hero! Great!