I’m going to start this post with a little disclaimer… I get that there are many purists out there who aren’t fans of shortcodes or plugins. They weigh the site down, you can do the same thing with code, blah, blah, blah.
This post isn’t for you.
Did that sound a little snarky? (That was for you Brent…)
Yea, it kinda was.
But the reality is not everyone knows how to do things in code and not everyone WANTS to do things with code. That’s not their “thing”. They use WordPress for their business and just want to go about doing their “thing”… not learning something that isn’t part of what they do day-to-day, or in the long run help’s them with their business (of course I’m not suggesting you install everything under the sun because you can. You still need to be smart about what you add to your site).
O.K., enough of that.
First, let’s just get clear on what a shortcode is. Let’s start with the official definition (this is from the WordPress.org, codex):
Pretty self explanatory, right?
You may be more familiar with shortcodes than you think to. Many plugins (and themes, like Genesis), come with built-in shortcodes. As an exmaple, if you use Gravity Forms on your site when you click the little ‘Add Form’ icon above your WYSIWYG editor it inserts a shortcode for your selected form to insert it into the page.
I’ve tried a boatload of shortcode plugings, both paid and free, and am happy to say that my absolute FAVORITE shortcode plugin is the Shortcodes Utlimate, which is a FREE plugin in the WordPress Plugin repository.
I like this plugin so much I left a review in the repository (something I’m going to be doing much more of this year… easiest way to say thank you to the developers who give us awesome plugins like this… for FREE!).
So before we get into the video of Shortcodes Ultimate, here are just a handful of shortcodes built into Shortcodes Ultimate (oh, and you can add your own custom shortcodes to the plugin too! Cool, huh?):
Buttons
Dividers
Tabs
Dropcap
Accordian
Video
Audio
Here’s a screenshot of all the shortcodes that come built into the plugin (and notice how you can view/search by category):
In case you’re wondering how or why this awesome plugin is FREE, it’s because Vladimir (the brilliant developer who created this) is offering premium add-ons. Brilliant.
As a user I love this model for plugins. As someone who has dabbled in plugin development (having them developed, not developing them myself) it causes me a bit of angst. Angst because I know what is required with plugin support, documentation and the constant flow of questions. Of course if you’re the one who developed the plugin I would suspect that it’s easier to know off the top of your head how to handle many of those issues.
O.K., let’s go ahead and jump into the video.
The post Show Me the Shortcode [VIDEO] appeared first on StudioPress Genesis Tutorials | WordPress Training | The WordPress Chick.