calling 2.8 widgets directly from template/plugin

Widgets are not made to be called directly. They go into registered sidebars.

If you want to use a widget directly, you’ll probably have to hack it up a bit to make it capable of a direct function call.

it is actually pretty easy.
After toying around for a bit I managed to call a widget from everywhere:

$instance = array("title" => "My Widget", "number" => 9);
$args = array("title" => "My Widget", "before_title" => "<h2>", "after_title" => "</h2>");
$sb = new My_Widget_Class();
$sb->widget($args,$instance);

@naabster – awesome snippet! I’m using it to call widgets from post/pages via shortcodes. The only problem with it is that the $instance[‘number’] doesn’t pass the number to the widget method. But this will work:

$instance = array("title" => "My Widget", "number" => 9);
$args = array("title" => "My Widget", "before_title" => "<h2>", "after_title" => "</h2>");
$sb = new My_Widget_Class();
$sb->number = $instance['number'];
$sb->widget($args,$instance);

When calling a widget from a post/page via shortcode, it’s being output at the top of the post/page. I guess its because the widget method echoes the content instead of returning it by reference. Is there a way to get around it and output widget content in specific place?

P.S. The workaround I came up with is to assign all the HTML within the widget method to a $variable and add a simple condition at the end to check if $instance[‘return’] is true – if yes – it returns the value or else prints it out. The return instance is declared as true in the shortcode function.

Great! Exactly what I was looking for!

That is VERY useful! Glad I found it. Thanks.

I have a problem that may solved by a variation of that code.

In this section of my template:

<?php if ( !function_exists('dynamic_sidebar') || !dynamic_sidebar('left-side-widgets') ) : ?>

I would like to add something like:

<?php else : ?>
<?php /* alternate sidebar file if no widgets detected in dynamic sidebar */ ?>

<?php endif; ?>

Obviously, I would like to include an alternate file if no widgets exist in that specific dynamic sidebar.

How can I create that “switch”?

I can use:
file_get_contents($someurl);
to grab the file if I must.

Thanks for any help…

Thanks for the snippet!

I’ve ran into this kind of problem:
if (sidebar has widget) –> show sidebar
else –> show some widgets by hand

The results:

Function to verify if sidebar has a widget:
————

function is_sidebar_active($sidebar_id, $force = false){

		static $sidebars_widgets;

		if($force || !isset($sidebars_widgets)){

			$sidebars_widgets = get_option('sidebars_widgets', array());

		}

		if((int)$sidebar_id) $sidebar_id = sprintf('sidebar-%d', $sidebar_id);

		return is_array($sidebars_widgets[$sidebar_id]) && count($sidebars_widgets[$sidebar_id]);

	}

Code in sidebar.php:
————

if (is_sidebar_active(1))

				dynamic_sidebar('Blogs: Lateral Interna');

			else {

				widget_perfil();

				$args = array (

					'title' => '',

					'before_widget' => '<li class="widget">',

					'after_widget' => '</li>',

					'before_title' => '<h2>',

					'after_title' => '</h2>'

				);

				$instance = array ( 'title' => 'Categorias', 'number' => 1 );

				$widget = new WP_Widget_Categories();

				$widget->widget($args,$instance);

				$args = array ( 'title' => '' );

				$instance = array ( 'title' => 'Tweets @revistatitude', 'number' => 1 );

				$widget = new WP_Widget_Tweets();

				$widget->widget($args,$instance);

			}

Hope it helps someone.