Okay, in Part I, I showed how I got a custom previous/next post link where I wanted it, namely below each single post, but not so far down as to be below the comments (for some reason, this location bothered me).

Now we move on to putting a previous/next link in the sidebar, which meant the chance for me to feel extra-special about how awesome I am. (Note: Yes, this is sad. It is also true.)

One of the things I like most about the design of The Caucus (the New York Times politics blog) is the interesting content and navigation-type stuff happening in the sidebar. Specifically, they have a very cool previous/next post link tandem happening in the top of the sidebar, when you’re reading a single post. I wanted to mimic this, because mimicking things makes me happy.

First, I knew I’d have to add the function before the sidebars, or before sidebar_1 (I think both would probably work). I also knew I would most likely have to use a table to get the previous and next links to sit the way I wanted them to, with a separator in the middle, and one link on each side. So, unlike the prev/next links under the single post, now I would have to use two different calls, one for the previous post and one for the next post. [click to continue…]

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