How to introduce a new type for widget parameter in Magento2?

Question

I am working on an extension which offers custom widgets that include wysiwyg editor and image fields:

<widget id="masonry_category" class="MyCompany\Module\Block\Widget\Category" is_email_compatible="true">
<label translate="true">Masonry: Category</label>
<description translate="true">Category Image with Link</description>
<parameters>
    ...
    <parameter name="featured_image" xsi:type="image" visible="true" required="false">
        <label translate="true">Category Image</label>
    </parameter>
</parameters>

However, as far as I can see, we are not allowed to use these types:

Element 'parameter', attribute '{http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance}type': The QName value 'image' of the xsi:type attribute does not resolve to a type definition.

I see some rules for widgets in Magento_Widget:etc/widget.xsd, but I am not sure how would I go about extending this. Unfortunately, the official documentation didn't help me to figure this out.

BTW, one very weird thing about this: I don't see these errors on my local environment (with development mode turned ON + PHP mode for displaying all errors). And my types (editor and image) are working fine. I run into trouble as soon as I deploy the code to our staging environment, which doesn't make sense to me.

Answer 1

Found the solution and wrote a blog post http://mageclass.com/quick-tip-how-to-use-image-wyswyg-or-any-other-non-standard-field-in-magento2-widget/. I am not sure if it's in line with the best practices, the only requirement I had was not to touch the core.

Answer 2

By default, the input types are:

• text
• textarea
• select
• multiselect

However, you can declare another types, for example using render function in the block, in my opinion is the best way.

First step, write a block, in this case is for render a date field:

class Theme_Module_Block_Date extends Mage_Adminhtml_Block_Widget_Form_Renderer_Fieldset_Element
    {
        public function render(Varien_Data_Form_Element_Abstract $element)
        {
            $element->setType('date');
            $this->_element = $element;

            return $this->toHtml();
        }
    }

Second step you must declare the input in widget.xml:

<your_widget>
    <date>
      ...
      <type>theme_module/date</type>
      ...
    </date>
</your_widget>

Another examples to render:

class Theme_Module_Block_Hour extends Mage_Adminhtml_Block_Widget_Form_Renderer_Fieldset_Element
{

    public function render(Varien_Data_Form_Element_Abstract $element)
    {
        $element->setType('time');
        $this->_element = $element;

        return $this->toHtml();
    }
}

In widget.xml:

... theme_module/hour ...

I hope this may help you.