How to render widgets in product and category description in Magento 2?

Question

In Magento 2 we can add widgets to CMS pages and CMS blocks with a directive like this (assuming we created this custom widget with a module before):

{{widget type="Vendor\Module\Block\Widget\CustomWidget" some_addtribute="some-value"}}

When we add the same widget code in product or category description it is not rendered. So the output is the text string from above.

How can we extend Magento 2 in a way that it will render widgets in product or category descriptions as well?

Answer 1

Instead of instantiating the object manager and filterprovider etc. in your template, consider this:

In your block class (Vendor\Module\Block\Widget\CustomWidget) include the dependencies in your constructor:

/**
 * Example constructor.
 * @param \Magento\Cms\Model\Template\FilterProvider $filterProvider
 * @param \Magento\Catalog\Helper\Output $catalogOutputHelper
 * @param \Magento\Framework\View\Element\Template $context
 * @param array $data
 */
public function __construct(
    \Magento\Cms\Model\Template\FilterProvider $filterProvider,
    \Magento\Catalog\Helper\Output $catalogOutputHelper,
    \Magento\Framework\View\Element\Template $context,
    array $data = []
) {
    $this->filterProvider = $filterProvider;
    $this->catalogOutputHelper = $catalogOutputHelper;
    \Magento\Framework\View\Element\Template::__construct($context, $data);
}

Now in your block class add a method to filter the input:

/**
 * @param string $description
 * @return string
 */
public function getFilteredContent(string $description)
{
    return $this->filterProvider
        ->getBlockFilter()
        ->filter(
            $this->catalogOutputHelper->categoryAttribute(
                $this->getCurrentCategory(),
                $description,
                'description'
            )
        );
}

I assume that getCurrentCategory() is a method you've already created.

Now in your template, you can simply do:

echo $block->getFilteredDescription($_description);

So now your template is neat and tidy and all dependencies and business logic are separated to you block class, as it should.

Answer 2

Meanwhile I can answer that myself.

While there might be better approaches one of the easiest is to just get an instance of FilterProvider (and the StoreMangerInterface) in the template where the widget should get rendered and pass the output through the block filter of the FilterProvider.

So for the category description this would for example be the template vendor\magento\module-catalog\view\frontend\templates\category\description.phtml which you should copy to your custom theme: app\design\frontend\Vendor\theme\Magento_Catalog\templates\category\description.phtml.

In it you can now replace

/* @escapeNotVerified */ echo $this->helper('Magento\Catalog\Helper\Output')->categoryAttribute($block->getCurrentCategory(), $_description, 'description') ;

with something like this:

$objectManager = \Magento\Framework\App\ObjectManager::getInstance();
$filterProvider = $objectManager->create('\Magento\Cms\Model\Template\FilterProvider');
$storeManager = $objectManager->create('\Magento\Store\Model\StoreManagerInterface');

echo $filterProvider->getBlockFilter()
     ->setStoreId($storeManager->getStore()->getId())
     ->filter(
         $this->helper('Magento\Catalog\Helper\Output')->categoryAttribute($block->getCurrentCategory(), $_description, 'description')
      );

And you can do similar things in all templates where you want something to render widgets.