Question

I’m creating a widget where there will be 2 types of params:

-The one that can change depending on where we call the widget, those one will be defined in the widget call:

<?php $this->widget('ext.myWidget', array(
    'someParams' => 'someValues',
)); ?>

-The one that are the same for all the call to the widget (a path to a library, a place to save an image, …)

I would like to know what is the best way to define the second type of parameters.

I’m hesitating between making the user define it in the params array in the config file or defining it in an array in the Widget file.

The main advantage of the first option is that the user won’t have to modify the Widget file so in case of update his modifications won’t be overwritten, but this is not a specific user params so putting it in the parmas array in config file might seem strange.

So what would be the best solution? If there is another one better thant the 2 above please tell me!

Edit:

To clarify my thought:
My widget will generate some images that can be stored in a configurable directory. But since this directory has to be the same each time the widget is called I don’t see the point of putting this configuration into the widget call!
This is why I was thinking about putting some params into the config file, in the params array like:

params => array(
    'myWidget' => array(
        'imageDir' => 'images',
    )
)

But I don’t know if it is a good practice that an extension has some configuration values in the params array.

Another solution would be to have a config.php file in my extension directory where the user can set his own values so he won’t have to modify his main config file for the plugin. But the main drawback of this alternative is that if the user update the extension, he’ll loose his configuration.

This is why I’m looking for the best practice concerning the configuration of a widget

Answer 1

Maybe what your looking for is more of an application component than a widget. You’ve got a lot more power within a component that you have with a widget. It can all still live in your extensions directory, under a folder with all the relevant files, and still be easily called from anywhere but the configuration can then be defined in configuration files for each environment.

When your setting the component in your configs, just point the class array parameter to the extensions folder, instead of the components folder.

Update:
If you do want to use a widget because there’s not a lot more complexity, you can provide some defaults within application configurations for widgets I believe, I’ve never used it myself, see here: http://www.yiiframework.com/doc/guide/1.1/en/topics.theming#customizing-widgets-globally.

But I’ve found with more complex widgets that a component serves me better in the long run as I can call methods and retrieve options on it much easier and cleaner, but still have everything related to the extension within one folder.