How to set a custom Primary Sidebar for all Pages using a Page Template

In the comments section of How to set up different sidebars for archives and Pages in Genesis a user asked:

How about activating the sidebar for a particular page based upon a template? Is it too late in the build to activate the sidebar in the template itself?

We can register a custom widget area in functions.php and hook a function to genesis_after_header inside the custom Page Template to replace the default Primary Sidebar with our custom widget area in the Primary Sidebar location.

As an example let’s first register a custom widget area called “Services Sidebar” by adding the following in functions.php:

// Register services-sidebar widget area
genesis_register_widget_area(
	array(
		'id'          => 'services-sidebar',
		'name'        => __( 'Services Sidebar', 'my-theme-text-domain' ),
		'description' => __( 'Replaces the Primary Sidebar on Pages that use Services Page Template', 'my-theme-text-domain' ),
	)
);

The next step is to create the Services Page Template. Create a file named say, template_services.php having the following code:

/*
Template Name: Services
*/

add_action( 'genesis_after_header', 'sk_change_genesis_primary_sidebar' );
/**
 * Show Services sidebar in Primary Sidebar location
 */
function sk_change_genesis_primary_sidebar() {

	// remove Primary Sidebar from the Primary Sidebar area
	remove_action( 'genesis_sidebar', 'genesis_do_sidebar' );

	// show Services Sidebar in Primary Sidebar area
	add_action( 'genesis_sidebar', function() {
		dynamic_sidebar( 'services-sidebar' );
	} );

}

genesis();

That’s it. Any Page to which Services Template is applied will automatically show the widgets inside Services widget area instead of those in the Primary Sidebar.

C.O.P

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