Recently I downloaded a Magento module that seemed to do what I want:  a list of tweets of a certain user, displayed in the frontend of Magento.

However, the module was a widget. I did not want to create a CMS page or block solely for inputting the widget’s variable so I sorted out how to call the widget from inside a .phtml file in a Magento template.

The widget was Magentweet and had several things to configure when using it in the backend. I could add the same widget programmatically like this:

<?php $tweetblock =  $this->getLayout()->createBlock(‘magentweet/user’);

$tuser = $tweetblock->setData(‘tuser’,'groupdeal_nl’);

$nb = $tweetblock->setData(‘nb’, 5);

$link = $tweetblock->setData(‘link’,'#1E7EC8′);

$link_a = $tweetblock->setData(‘link_a’,'#000′);

$desa = $tweetblock->setData(‘desa’,'enable’);

echo $tweetblock->setTemplate(‘magentweet/user.phtml’)->toHtml(); ?>

Of importance here is not that a widget block is created through a regular createBlock() statement. The trick is the setData() statements. In a widgets Block code you can easily see which data the widget expects, and you can set the widget’s data accordingly from the template instead of through elaborate WYSIWYG cms procedures.