New way of adding sidebars

You can register more than one sidebar. In wp-includes/widgets.php you find the function-definition for register-sidebars() which you may use in your custom function within your theme-folder (functions.php - if not existent, create an empty php-file by that name):

<?php if ( function_exists ('register_sidebar')) { 
    register_sidebar ('custom'); 
} ?>

'custom' would mean you have to create a custom sidebar-file under the name sidebar-custom.php. Sidebars get indexed. Your default sidebar (sidebar.php) gets indexed as 1. Every succeeding one will have an index higher than 1. You will see your sidebars now listed in 'Apearance' -> 'Widgets'.

In your sidebar-templates you may now call the dynamic generated content (widgets) by the index of your sidebars:

<?php if ( function_exists ( dynamic_sidebar(1) ) ) : ?>
... regular html ...
<?php dynamic_sidebar (1); ?>
... regular html ...
<?php endif; ?>

You can integrate your sidebars in your template-files (e.g. index.php, single.php, archives.php):

<?php get_sidebar (); ?>

gets you the default sidebar.

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

should display your custom sidebar.

<?php
if ( function_exists('register_sidebar') )
    register_sidebar(array(
        'before_widget' => '<li id=\"%1$s\" class=\"widget %2$s\">',
        'after_widget' => '</li>',
        'before_title' => '<h2 class=\"widgettitle\">',
        'after_title' => '</h2>',
    ));

"apostrophe" said:

Funnily enough I saw this article today and thought of you http://wpcandy.com/articles/tutorials/how-to-make-the-most-out-of-your-sidebar.html