WordPress HACK – How to widgetize your theme!

Well, I had to widgetize my old theme today but it was pretty simple:

Make a file called functions.php in your theme directory. (if you don’t have one yet)

Add the following code and save the file:
if ( function_exists(‘register_sidebar’) )
register_sidebar(array(
‘before_widget’ => ”,
‘after_widget’ => ”,
‘before_title’ => ‘

‘,
‘after_title’ => ‘

‘,
));
?>

Then add the following anywhere you want to add dynamic widgets:

<?php if ( !function_exists(‘dynamic_sidebar’)
|| !dynamic_sidebar() ) : ?>

<?php endif; ?>

You can actually put your existing code within the if loop OR you can also put it before or after.

Since I didn’t want to widgetize all existing stuff, I simply put it after all my existing code in my sidebar.

You can also create multiple dynamic widget locations simply by add numbers to the code like this:

<?php if ( !function_exists(‘dynamic_sidebar’)
|| !dynamic_sidebar(1) ) : ?>

<?php endif; ?>

Other Online Resources:

Widgetizing Themes by Automattic

2 Responses to WordPress HACK – How to widgetize your theme!

1. GH3 Cheats says:

   April 26, 2008 at 11:18 am

   So that allows you to incorporate the widgets siderbar?
2. max says:

   April 27, 2008 at 2:50 am

   Yup, basically that’s what it does if your theme is old like mine OR simply doesn’t support widgets.