Hi Dianna – sorry for the delayed response.

If I’m reading your problem correctly, it sounds like you’re having an issue with the default widget in your primary sidebar. Most theme designers write some default content into the sidebars of their blogs so that the space isn’t just blank when the theme first loads. That default widget is removed when you add one of your own to that specific sidebar.

As far as the primary sidebar tab always being open, WordPress automatically opens the primary sidebar for you when you load the widget page – closing it does not remove the sidebar.

The problem you describe of the primary sidebar blocking your other widgets is very strange indeed. My advice would be to check the theme options page and look for a way to enable/disable specific sidebars. It could be that the sidebar you are trying to use simply isn’t active at the moment.

Good luck, let me know if you run into any more trouble!

Sorry for the long delay in getting back to you – I hope that you’ve already found a solution to your problem, but I wanted to reply in case you were still working on it.

The fact that the widget disappears is a function of the plugin – some plugins create widgets that can be used multiple times, while others only work once (sounds like this is the case for your plugin), which causes an obvious issue for someone like you with multiple sidebars.

I can see two three possible ways around this, but unfortunately, both involve messing with your theme code a bit.

First Option: Eliminate one of the sidebars

I can’t provide exact step by step instructions, because the process depends partially on how the theme was written, but if you don’t actually NEED two different sidebars, you could modify your theme to use one on every page.

Second Option:

Some plugin developers will provide instructions on their website to display the plugin at will by adding a function to your theme (in the header, footer, sidebar, wherever you might want it). Checking with the developer’s website may reveal the PHP function you’d need to trigger a second instance of the plugin (you’d just have to paste it into the second sidebar’s code in sidebar.php

Third Option (popped into my head while I was typing ):

Add the optin to a sidebar and then view that page. If you pull up the source code (under the “View” menu of your browser), you should then be able to locate the code that generates the form.

Theoretically, copying that form code into a text widget on the other sidebar should recreate the form – but since you were adding the form code manually on that sidebar, changes you make on the plugin settings screen probably wouldn’t carry over to the second sidebar – you’d need to replace the code if you modified anything.

Let me know if this is still something you’re working on, or if these answers don’t point you in the right direction!