Creare custom product list widget

[mserbanoiu]

We want to create an advanced widget for catalog product list in which to add new options compared to the classical standard Magento2 Catalog Product List widget.
We created a module for this widget that works with normal categories in widget rules but does not work with automatic categories.
Please help us with the correct approach to accomplish this.
Our dev comes with two possible solution:

1. to create plugins for before/afterCreateCollection in which to apply the features from elasticsuite to the collection returned for the widget, like:

<type name="Magento\CatalogWidget\Block\Product\ProductsList">
    <arguments>
        <argument name="productCollectionFactory" xsi:type="object">Magento\CatalogSearch\Model\ResourceModel\Fulltext\CollectionFactory</argument>
        <argument name="sqlBuilder" xsi:type="object">Smile\ElasticsuiteVirtualCategory\Model\Condition\ElasticsearchBuilder</argument>
    </arguments>
    <plugin name="smile_elasticsuite_apply_virtual_category_rule" type="Smile\ElasticsuiteVirtualCategory\Plugin\Widget\ProductsListPlugin" />
</type>

2. change the widget block type to try to use methods from the default magento block that renders the selection of products to automatically apply the plugins already created by elasticsuite

Can you advice further?