Displaying HTML file in widget and Forum Block

[karlm]

Currently I am updating a forum block & a widget as two separate instances even though both reflect identical information.

Both are made of plain HTML.

I would like it if could simply edit a *.htm file and have the widget and forum-block both update automatically according to the contents of the *.htm file.

Is this possible and if so, could you give me rough direction on how to achieve this?

[karlm]

Wow, who'd have thought a request like this was so complicated or out of people's abilities... I figured it would be a lot easier.

[kh99]

You might be able to make your block/widget an iframe that loads your htm file. Another way would be to use a php type widget/block and include an external file, like:

ob_start();
include('something.htm');
$output = ob_get_contents();
ob_end_clean();

// forum block needs a return, widget doesn't (but it might work anyway)
return $output;

Remember that widgets and forum block content is cached so when you change your htm file you won't see the changes until the cache expires (unless you set cache time to 0. But it's probably good to leave it set to at least 1 minute if possible).