Shortcodes are formatting actions that are defined within open and closing square brackets. You will find some of the advanced editing features such as adding an image or a file download link will show up as a shortcode.
| A pair of square brackets in your text may be confused with a shortcode, if this happens enter two square brackets instead, you would type [[brackets]] to get [brackets] – but you are unlikely to need to do this normally. |
You will see shortcodes inserted by some of the editing actions, most notably WP-Filebase uses shortcodes to show where a link to a file is inserted into the page.
In general you will not need to use shortcodes yourself as these are created by the editor when adding files or other items. You can edit a shortcode if you are careful (see later) to change its behaviour. In the embedded PDF example you can choose a different PDF by editing the id number to that of the new file – or just delete the current shortcode and use the WP-Filebase icon to inserted a new file.
You will find the following shortcodes are specific to the EWPH web site and are not available using the editor icon bar: they must be typed in as text:
[clear/] – ensures text starts below any pictures that are left or right aligned
[of-child-table/] – generates a summary table (2 columns) of all child pages (title and the first paragraph) and a more details link
[of-child-summary/] – generates a list summary of all child pages (title and the first paragraph) and a more details link
There are more shortcodes for creating buttons and expanding sections (as shown on the Parish Hall Facilities page). There are both described on the Navigation Buttons page.
Using Shortcodes
Simple short codes are a name in square brackets [clear] but preferably with a forward slash after the word [clear/].
Shortcodes may have addition attributes listed after the shortcode name which also have names and are followed by an equals sign and a value [wpfilebase tag=file id=321/] but ideally the value will be enclosed in apostrophes or speech marks [wpfilebase tag='file' id='321'/]. Shortcode and attribute names cannot contain spaces and attribute values must be put inside apostrophes or speech marks if they do contain spaces.
