What is WordPress Shortcode?

WordPress Shortcode :

        It’s a common phenomenon to see a designer’s website in a design class several levels above that of it’s clients web design work. While there are many factors that can play into this occurrence, one in particular is very common. Designers/developers know more about code, whereas many clients don’t try at all to learn any. That is a huge component in making it difficult for those who build WordPress websites to make top notch sites for clients. There are certain site components that require additional code custom to each usage in order to function. Thus, for many jobs, additional code means more advanced components are off limits for client work, limiting the site’s possibilities.

However, it is possible to use WordPress Shortcode to output complex snippets in a simple manner so that people with no HTML/CSS background can output any pre-determined code snippet.

WordPress Shortcode has a wide variety of applications and can be extremely beneficial for website managers of all ranges of technical backgrounds.

What is WordPress Shortcode?

Example 1

[container]Lorem ipsum dolar sit amet[/container]

With that shortcode, you can output whatever you want on your WordPress website. You can build anything – any amont of HTML, CSS, Javascript, PHP, or anything else you may want. The possibilities are endless.

Example 2

The simplest, yet most overlooked, example of using WordPress Shortcode can be extremely simple or extremely complex.

This:

[donate]

Can output this:

<a href="/donate/" class="donate-button">Donate!</a>

This simple technique utilizing WordPress shortcode can output pre-built complex, or simple, code snippets. This one is great for having pre-built content areas that are used on multiple pages and/or articles. It’s less code to maintain and allows you to update all of the pages by editing a single code snippet. Very similar to WordPress’ file structure, but using WordPress shortcode gives you more versatility and applications.

Example 3

The most common example of WordPress’ Shortcode can be derived from BBCode.

This:

[img title="Example Logo"]http://example.com/images/logo.png[/img]

Can output this:

<img src="http://example.com/images/logo.png" alt="Example Logo" />

BBCode, essentially a different form of WordPress Shortcode common on forums, uses the above snippet to output an image. While this isn’t all that different than the  tag, it is simpler enough that, as a general rule, website managers who aren’t very technically savvy have an easier time grasping shortcode than actual html.

Even though it’s an extremely simple concept, the possibilities are endless and WordPress shortcode can open up a whole new world for your client work.