Brian Gardner developed this code to be used as a Welcome Widget demonstrating the results on the eleven40 theme that can be used for a full width widget area on most Genesis Child Themes. From my experience on the StudioPress Community Forum, a lot of people requesting this are not very technically savvy and they really don’t want or need to know the “how and why does this work” explanation – they just want the meat and potatoes of what to do. So I broke it down for them.
Create the Full Width Widget Area
Open up the Functions.php file. Add this to the bottom of that file.
Change the references to “themename” to your own particular theme.
Add Full Width Widget Area to Home Page Only
If you want the widget area to only show up on the “Home Page” only – you can do a couple of things. If you use the Jetpack plugin, you can use the “Visibility” button to indicate home page only or, you can use this version of the above code which has been modified for home page location only.
Add Styling
Open up your Style.css file and copy/paste the following code. Style your new widget area the way you want it:
That’s it. Now you can drag a widget area into that area. Use it for a welcome message or even add a slider. It’s up to you.
I tried this but it didn’t not work. The widget area is visible in the dash board but front end there is nothing showing?
Hi Adam. I took a look at the site. Did you get this resolved? I see a slider at the top that makes me thing you did.