difference from / to widgets about plugins HOT 4 CLOSED

It's not different, really. Only thing different is the syntax when calling a widget vs. plugin. Widgets append widget_ at the beginning while plugins do not append anything. They're very similar in the way they're executed but the use case is different. For instance, widgets should always return a view partial, but plugins should only return a data set (e.g. a collection of blog posts).

I may end up merging the two into one package. I kinda threw this together to get a feel for the workflow and use-case.

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Thanks!

Hmmm, just throwing out some thoughts.
What you just described sounds to me that this package is a "widget". So, I'd say to combine them then.

packages > modules > plugins > widgets
However, everybody probably sees this different 😄

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Looks like I got stuck in the L 5.x to 5.1 changes...
(I'm still on L5.x until I can update my apps / modules)

Hmmm,
So, I shouldn't be using plugins to send data to a blade view?
And use widgets to do that instead?

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gonna add my vespoken menu code as a reference:

my plugin (older type it seems ... 😦 )

        Menu::handler('top')->hydrate(function()
            {
            $pages = Content::where('print_status_id', '=', 2)->orderBy('order')->get();
//dd($pages);
            return $pages;
            },
            function($children, $item)
            {
                if($item->depth < 1) {
                    $children->add($item->slug, $item->translate(Config::get('app.locale'))->title, Menu::items($item->as));
                }
            });

        return view("plugins.navigation_menu");

my main template call:

<ul class="nav navbar-nav">
{!!
    Plugin::MenuNavigation()
!!}
</ul>

my actual view:

<! -- Plugin -->

{!!
    Menu::handler('top')
        ->getItemsAtDepth(0);
!!}

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