How to echo Widget Title in Custom Frontend-Template Box

Question

I've created a custom Widget with the help of following code:

    // Creating the widget 
class wpb_widget extends WP_Widget {

function __construct() {
    parent::__construct(
    // Base ID of your widget
    'wpb_widget', 

    // Widget name will appear in UI
    __('WPBeginner Widget', 'wpb_widget_domain'), 

    // Widget description
    array( 'description' => __( 'Sample widget based on WPBeginner Tutorial', 'wpb_widget_domain' ), ) 
    );
}

// Creating widget front-end
// This is where the action happens
public function widget( $args, $instance ) {
    $title = apply_filters( 'widget_title', $instance['title'] );
    // before and after widget arguments are defined by themes
    echo $args['before_widget'];
    if ( ! empty( $title ) )
    echo $args['before_title'] . $title . $args['after_title'];

    // This is where you run the code and display the output
    echo get_template_part( 'partials/widgets/test-w' );
    echo $args['after_widget'];
}

// Widget Backend 
public function form( $instance ) {
    if ( isset( $instance[ 'title' ] ) ) {
        $title = $instance[ 'title' ];
    }
    else {
        $title = __( 'New title', 'wpb_widget_domain' );
    }
    // Widget admin form
    ?>
    <p>
    <label for="<?php echo $this->get_field_id( 'title' ); ?>"><?php _e( 'Title:' ); ?></label> 
    <input class="widefat" id="<?php echo $this->get_field_id( 'title' ); ?>" name="<?php echo $this->get_field_name( 'title' ); ?>" type="text" value="<?php echo esc_attr( $title ); ?>" />
    </p>
    <?php 
}

// Updating widget replacing old instances with new
public function update( $new_instance, $old_instance ) {
    $instance = array();
    $instance['title'] = ( ! empty( $new_instance['title'] ) ) ? strip_tags( $new_instance['title'] ) : '';
    return $instance;
}
} // Class wpb_widget ends here

// Register and load the widget
function wpb_load_widget() {
    register_widget( 'wpb_widget' );
}
add_action( 'widgets_init', 'wpb_load_widget' );

As you can see, i echo a html template with

echo get_template_part( 'partials/widgets/test-w' );

in the main code.

I've register the sidebar in my functions.php with following code

    register_sidebar(
    array(
        'name'              => 'Index Right',
        'before_widget' => '<div id="%1$s" class="widget %2$s">',
        'after_widget'  => '</div>',
        'before_title'  => '<h3 class="widget-title">',
        'after_title'   => '</h3>',
    )
);

The widget output in my frontend looks like:

THE PROBLEM

The title is outside the widget box. I tried a lot of things to get the title to the top of the box like following image - but no luck :(

My php/html code ( echo get_template_part... ) for the widget looks like

    <?php
   $default_thumbnail = 'http://vvvvvvvv.com/vvvvvvvvv.png';
   $the_query = new WP_Query('showposts=12&orderby=desc&category_name=featured');
  while ($the_query->have_posts()) : $the_query->the_post();
?>
<div class="notbad-1">              
    <a target="_blank" href="<?php the_permalink()?>">
        <ul class="top-page-test">                          
            <li class="top-page-test-list">
                        <?php
                        if (has_post_thumbnail()):
                        the_post_thumbnail('thumbnail-test');
                        else:
                        ?>
                        <img src="<?php echo $thumbnail; ?>"/>
                        <?php endif; ?>
            </li>
            <li class="test-image-title">               
            <?php the_title(); ?>       
            </li>
        </ul>
    </a> 
</div>      
<?php endwhile; ?>
<?php wp_reset_query(); ?>

Any suggestions on how to solve my problem?

Answer 1

You should not use echo in this case. Please visit the function reference of get_template_part. As you will see, there is nothing to print:

get_template_part doesn't return a value and doesn't warn if it fails to find a matching template file.

Additionally, I recommend that you check out this question: Should we use get_template_part() in functions files instead of include_once?