How to add widget area to Wordpress theme? [Project AR2] - php

Question

I'm using the Project AR2 theme and I'm trying to put a widget area directly underneath the slider. I've already added this to my functions.php file:
if ( function_exists('register_sidebar') ){
register_sidebar(array(
'name' => 'Below Slider Widgets',
'id' => 'below-slider-widgets',
'description' => 'The area below the Featured Posts slider. Great for small banner ads',
'before_widget' => '<div id="%1$s" class="widget %2$s">',
'after_widget' => '</div>',
'before_title' => '<h2>',
'after_title' => '</h2>'
));
}
But now I'm stuck on where to add this:
<div class="belowslider">
<?php if (!function_exists('dynamic_sidebar') || !dynamic_sidebar('Below Slider Widgets')) :endif; ?>
</div>
It seems the home page content is rendered dynamically, so it's not as simple as, say, opening a header.php file and pasting it in some static location.
My site isn't live yet, but here's a link to the theme demo:
http://demo.arrastheme.com/
And a link to all of the theme's files:
https://github.com/zyml/project-ar2
I think the key may lie in the home.php file, but I could be wrong.
Any help would be appreciated.

Answer 1

// Creating the widget
class wpb_widget extends WP_Widget {
function __construct() {
parent::__construct(
// Base ID of your widget
'wpb_widget',
// Widget name will appear in UI
__('WPBeginner Widget', 'wpb_widget_domain'),
// Widget description
array( 'description' => __( 'Sample widget based on WPBeginner Tutorial', 'wpb_widget_domain' ), )
);
}
// Creating widget front-end
// This is where the action happens
public function widget( $args, $instance ) {
$title = apply_filters( 'widget_title', $instance['title'] );
// before and after widget arguments are defined by themes
echo $args['before_widget'];
if ( ! empty( $title ) )
echo $args['before_title'] . $title . $args['after_title'];
// This is where you run the code and display the output
echo __( 'Hello, World!', 'wpb_widget_domain' );
echo $args['after_widget'];
}
// Widget Backend
public function form( $instance ) {
if ( isset( $instance[ 'title' ] ) ) {
$title = $instance[ 'title' ];
}
else {
$title = __( 'New title', 'wpb_widget_domain' );
}
// Widget admin form
?>
<p>
<label for="<?php echo $this->get_field_id( 'title' ); ?>"><?php _e( 'Title:' ); ?></label>
<input class="widefat" id="<?php echo $this->get_field_id( 'title' ); ?>" name="<?php echo $this->get_field_name( 'title' ); ?>" type="text" value="<?php echo esc_attr( $title ); ?>" />
</p>
<?php
}
// Updating widget replacing old instances with new
public function update( $new_instance, $old_instance ) {
$instance = array();
$instance['title'] = ( ! empty( $new_instance['title'] ) ) ? strip_tags( $new_instance['title'] ) : '';
return $instance;
}
} // Class wpb_widget ends here
// Register and load the widget
function wpb_load_widget() {
register_widget( 'wpb_widget' );
}
add_action( 'widgets_init', 'wpb_load_widget' );