Architect the Shortcodes

First, we need to commit our code into our Git repository. Next, let’s talk about shortcodes. We’ll do an introduction to shortcodes including what it is and what is its intent.

Deep Dive into Shortcodes

A shortcode is a placeholder for additional content to be processed on the server when the content is being processed. You use a shortcode when you want to embed additional dynamic content, a set HTML structure, or redundant content.

In this episode, we will dive deep into the process of how and why a shortcode works.

The process starts when you register a custom shortcode using add_shortcode. When the_content() or get_the_content() runs, WordPress scans the post content for all of the registered shortcodes. When found, the callback runs. That gives you the means to run your code, process the shortcode, build the HTML, and then send it back. What you return back replaces the shortcode in the content before it’s rendered out to the browser.

You’ll learn about how to load and return a view file instead of rendering it directly out to the browser. You will use the PHP output buffer. You’ll turn it on with ob_start(), load the view file, and then grab the content out of the output buffer and return it to WordPress using ob_get_clean().

Architecting Our Shortcode Processor

Let’s talk about what we will do in our plugin. How will we adapt the shortcode boilerplate code from add_shortcode to fit our needs.