During theme development, I understand how to create basic widgets within the functions.php file.
However, when it comes to displaying the widget within a theme, is there a preferred way to display them – primary, what are the benefits of using the the_widget() function versus the dynamic_sidebar() function?
the_widget() is used to display a specific widget outside of a sidebar. To be honest, this function serves no valuable purpose as you need to hard code the widget $instance parameters, this means that you will need to manually change the code every time you need to change something. So much for dynamica. It would just be easier to simply code a custom function and then calling it in your template where needed. It will be faster and much easier to use
Stick with widgets inside sidebars as they are dynamic and can be changed without touching theme or plugin code. I would rather code twenty sidebars and add them in strategic places than using one hardcoded instance of the_widget()
