A widget-ready sidebar or widgetized sidebar is almost a standard for themes catering the WordPress 2.0 and 2.1 series. But first, what is widgetizing? Widgetizing simply means getting the Sidebar ready for the Widget plugin; this plugin allows you to easily re-arrange features within the Sidebar.

For example, instead of having to modify the Sidebar codes to switch the positions of Categories and Archives, you simply drag the Archives and Catgories listings to their positions.

Step 1: Create functions.php file

Start a new Notepad, leave it blank, save it as functions.php. Copy everything below to your functions.php file. Save and close the functions.php Notepad.

<?php
if ( function_exists('register_sidebar') )
    register_sidebar();
?>

Just for review, you should now have four files in the theme folder named, “tutorial.”

Step 2: Widgetize the Sidebar

Type the following codes directly after the sidebar’s first <ul> tag.

<?php if ( function_exists(’dynamic_sidebar’) && dynamic_sidebar() ) : else : ?>

Type this one directly before the </ul> tag:

<?php endif; ?>

Save the index.php file. You will not see any changes on the web page until you’ve installed the Widget plugin. We’ll do that later.

Follow this WordPress Theme Tutorial Series from the beginning.