Step 1: Adding A New Widget Area
First thing we need to do is add our new widget area. To do this you will need to open the function.php file (or create one and put in into your theme folder if you don’t have one yet) and add this bit of code:
//
// Adding more Widget Areas to the Sidebar
//
register_sidebar( array(
'name' => __( 'Publications', 'YourChildThemeName' ),
'id' => 'publications',
'description' => __( 'A List of Publications', 'YourChildThemeName' ),
'before_widget' => '<li id="%1$s">',
'after_widget' => '</li>',
'before_title' => '<h3>',
'after_title' => '</h3>',
) );
What we’ve done is created a new sidebar widget area name “Publication” to be used by the “YourChildThemeName” theme, (you can check to make sure it is now in your widgets area and add some content to it) but it won’t show up in your content yet as we have not told WP where to put it. So we have decided that we want to have a Publications page on our website and we would like to have a list of all of our publication in the sidebar on this page but not anywhere else. So the next step will be to create a Page Template and add this new widget to that page.
New Publications Widget
Step 2: Create A New Page Template
To create a new page template locate your page.php, duplicate it and rename it (in my case I will call it Publications). Next step is to add the Temaplate name. This is an important step as this is what WordPress will be looking for. So at the top of our new template just below <?php and above get_header(); ?> add:
/*
Template Name: Publications
*/
Congrats, you have created a new Page Template that WordPress will recognize. At this point there is nothing different about this template is will still not show us our new widget and will still show the default widgets. To change this we need to head to the bottom of this new template until you see
<?php get_sidebar(); ?>
. This is collecting the default information from the sidebar, so we will replace this with our new “Publications” sidebar widget area by removing that line of code and replacing it with:
<?php if ( is_active_sidebar( 'publications' )) { ?>
<div id="secondary" class="widget-area" role="complementary">
<ul class="xoxo">
<?php dynamic_sidebar( 'publications' );} ?>
</ul>
</div><!-- #publication .widget-area -->
And that it, your new template will look something like this:
<?php
/*
Template Name: Publications
*/
get_header(); ?>
<div id="container">
<div id="content" role="main">
<?php if ( have_posts() ) while ( have_posts() ) : the_post(); ?>
<article id="post-<?php the_ID(); ?>" <?php post_class(); ?>>
<?php if ( is_front_page() ) { ?>
<h2 class="entry-title"><?php the_title(); ?></h2>
<?php } else { ?>
<h1 class="entry-title"><?php the_title(); ?></h1>
<?php } ?>
<div class="entry-content">
<?php the_content(); ?>
<?php wp_link_pages( array( 'before' => '<div class="page-link">' . __( 'Pages:', 'twentyten' ), 'after' => '</div>' ) ); ?>
<?php edit_post_link( __( 'Edit', 'twentyten' ), '<span class="edit-link">', '</span>' ); ?>
</div><!-- .entry-content -->
</article><!-- #post-## -->
<?php endwhile; ?>
</div><!-- #content -->
</div><!-- #container -->
<?php if ( is_active_sidebar( 'publications' )) { ?>
<div id="secondary" class="widget-area" role="complementary">
<ul class="xoxo">
<?php dynamic_sidebar( 'publications' );} ?>
</ul>
</div><!-- #publication .widget-area -->
<?php get_footer(); ?>
Step 3: Choosing your new Page Template
Now that you have added the Widget area and created the Page Template lets go back to the WP Dashboard, choose Pages > Create New Page. Now under Page Attributes you will see Template with a drop-down menu. If you click on this drop down you should now see your new Publications template in the menu.
Choose this, (add a bit of content if you wish) > publish and view it. If you have added some content to your new Publications widget then you should now see this information in the sidebar! Go back to the home page and you will see that the sidebar content has changed back to your default.
Congratulations you have created a custom sidebar Widget and a custom Page Template! If you have any concerns or comments please let me know!
Source
http://www.designshifts.com/adding-custom-widgets-and-page-templates-with-wordpress/