Request: get_the_widget() function

Hi!

Currently, in wp 2.8 you can output a arbitrary widget anywhere in the theme with “the_widget()” function.

The problem is that the output cannot be stored in a variable, so the theme author cannot allow the user to place this widget anywhere inside a post for example (eg. using shortcodes)
Something just like “get_the_content” is to “the_content”..

I’m using PHP buffer output to achieve this (ob_get_contents), but I don’t know if this the best way to do it.

Is there any chance you can add a function that does this in 3.0?

tx