Plugin or Widget

I personally use a widget system. The one i use was originally created by u.farooq. It is very similar to a module but allot thinner and is meant to be run right from your views.

in this system a widget has it's own views and models. and would be accessed like this in your view file:

PHP Code:

$data = array('var1' => 'hello', 'var2' => 'world');
$this->load->widget('test');
$this->test->run($data); 


it is a rather simplistic but powerful widget system.

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for plugins i use Modular CI made by WanWizard.