Magento 2 widget doesn't show - how to debug?

Question

I have a module that is installed in other sites. In one site it doesn't show up when inserted into CMS Pages.

{{widget type="Company\Modulename\Block\Widget\Test" template="widget/newsletter/test.phtml"}}

app/code/Company/Modulename/Block/Widget/Test.php:

namespace Company\Modulename\Block\Widget; 
class Test extends \Magento\Framework\View\Element\Template implements \Magento\Widget\Block\BlockInterface
{  
    protected function _construct()
    {
        parent::_construct();
    }      
}

app/code/Company/Modulename/view/frontend/templates/widget/newsletter/test.phtml:

<?php
echo 1;

app/code/Company/Modulename/etc/widget.xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> 
<widgets xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
         xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation="urn:magento:module:Magento_Widget:etc/widget.xsd">
    <widget id="test" class="Company\Modulename\Block\Widget\Buttons">
        <label translate="true">some text</label>
        <description>some text</description>
        <parameters>
    ...

It will show just empty string, no matter what I try. I enabled developer mode but no info about that is inside system.log. Any idea what could be wrong or at least how I can debug this problem?

Answer 1

Not necessary an answer, but I resolved the problem. The code was obfuscated. Once I uploaded code without obfuscation it started to work. I am not sure why only on this environment, it worked properly exact the same code in two other sites. I guess there were some errors masked by server.

What I tried is to copy/paste sample widget code from other extension, renamed class names, removed all unnecessary part of code so it was left only echo 'test'; inside phtml and only class declaration and class inherit statements. Then I put back line by line. I realized it stopped working just at the last step when I tried to use obfuscated code.

Answer 2

Your widgets should be defined in etc/widget.xml and then you can insert them with the WYSIWYG editor from the "insert widget" button or create new widget from Content -> Widgets in admin.

app/code/Company/Modulename/etc/widget.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<widgets xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
         xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation="urn:magento:module:Magento_Widget:etc/widget.xsd">
    <widget id="company_widget_test" class="Company\Modulename\Block\Widget\Test">
    <label translate="true">Test widget</label>
    <description translate="true"></description>
    <parameters>
        <parameter name="title" xsi:type="text" visible="true" sort_order="10">
            <label translate="true">Title</label>
        </parameter>
    </parameters>
</widget>

You can add many parameters to your widget even define template filename. Examples: vendor/magento/module-catalog/etc/widget.xml and any other widget.xml in other Magento modules

Other way to set template filename to the widget

app/code/Company/Modulename/Block/Widget/Test.php:

namespace Company\Modulename\Block\Widget; 
class Test extends \Magento\Framework\View\Element\Template implements \Magento\Widget\Block\BlockInterface
{  
    public function __construct(
        \Magento\Framework\View\Element\Template\Context $context,
        array $data = []
    ) {
        $this->setTemplate('widget/newsletter/test.phtml');
        parent::__construct($context, $data);
    }     
}