Multiple sidebars are becoming increasingly popular with specific sidebars being displayed only on specific pages or posts. How do they do it? Originally it’d be an if (ie if is homepage) and then include a PHP file, but WordPress has a better way. A built in better way. In this post we’ll learn how to add multiple sidebars the right way.

The old, rubbishy way

Back in the day, you’d have something like this:

<?php include (TEMPLATEPATH . '/single-sidebar.php'; ?>

Which isn’t too pretty. Because WordPress has a better way of doing things. Which is using the get_sidebar function that is normally used to get the sidebar.

The new, brilliant way

It’s really as simple as renaming your new fancy sidebar sidebar-something.php and then you can use the get_sidebar function like so:

<?php get_sidebar('something'); ?>

And that’s all there is to it. I would write more, but that’s essentially it. So I won’t. Enjoy your new found knowledge!