Title: Shared Functionality Between Widget and Shortcode
Last modified: August 31, 2016

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# Shared Functionality Between Widget and Shortcode

 *  [Josh Eby](https://wordpress.org/support/users/josheby/)
 * (@josheby)
 * [10 years ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/shared-functionality-between-widget-and-shortcode/)
 * I am looking to build both a shortcode and a widget with essentially the same
   functionality, however, it seems short sighted to duplicate the code so I am 
   curious what suggestions people might have for integrating the two.
 * I have read a couple of articles about creating a shortcode that allows you to
   embed a widget in a page/post.
 * My initial thought was to write a shortcode and then just use the widget interface
   to configure the attributes. Just not sure how to then render the shortcode in
   place of the widget… or if that will even work.
 * Any input and ideas are appreciated! Thank you!

Viewing 2 replies - 1 through 2 (of 2 total)

 *  [mrbobbybryant](https://wordpress.org/support/users/mrbobbybryant/)
 * (@mrbobbybryant)
 * [10 years ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/shared-functionality-between-widget-and-shortcode/#post-7453750)
 * You could address this in at least two ways.
    1. Create your widget, and then
   create a shortcode which essentially wraps the widget using [https://codex.wordpress.org/Function_Reference/the_widget](https://codex.wordpress.org/Function_Reference/the_widget).`
   the_widget` lets you pass it instance args, so you would then simply map the 
   shortcode_atts to the instance args.
 * 2. Create a view layer function which simply takes the expected args and handles
   the visual display. So that function would simply handle and return the html 
   output for the widget and shortcode. Then both the shortcode and the widget could
   call that view function. So for example in your widget class, in the widget function,
   between `echo $args['before_widget'];` and `echo $args['after_widget'];` you 
   would just echo out the result of that html view layer function.
 * I hope that helps!
 *  [John James Jacoby](https://wordpress.org/support/users/johnjamesjacoby/)
 * (@johnjamesjacoby)
 * [10 years ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/shared-functionality-between-widget-and-shortcode/#post-7453771)
 * IMO, the hardest part of this is the abstraction between the two, and how to 
   serve-up the template output.
 * bbPress has largely solved this problem:
 * [https://bbpress.trac.wordpress.org/browser/trunk/src/includes/common/shortcodes.php](https://bbpress.trac.wordpress.org/browser/trunk/src/includes/common/shortcodes.php)
 * As you can see, it uses it’s own `bbp_get_template_part()` functionality, which
   is basically `get_template_part()` with an additional check for `shortcode-name.
   php` style template parts inside of bbPress’s plugin directory to use as fallbacks
   if neither the child nor parent theme have built-in support already (which they
   largely never will.)
 * Please use bbPress as an example for this; it’s historically been a great example
   of doing all the best things WordPress has to offer, but cranked to 11.

Viewing 2 replies - 1 through 2 (of 2 total)

The topic ‘Shared Functionality Between Widget and Shortcode’ is closed to new replies.

 * 2 replies
 * 3 participants
 * Last reply from: [John James Jacoby](https://wordpress.org/support/users/johnjamesjacoby/)
 * Last activity: [10 years ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/shared-functionality-between-widget-and-shortcode/#post-7453771)
 * Status: not resolved

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